


When the Fish Are Biting

by InaccessibleRail



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Closeted Character, F/M, Football | Soccer, Frottage, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Past Character Death, Pining, Self-Denial, Sexual Content, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Sports, bros being bros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 15:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 34,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17185940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InaccessibleRail/pseuds/InaccessibleRail
Summary: What, you don’t snuggle with your bros?Steve Rogers plays college soccer, learns about male bonding, experiences a minor identity crisis, and generally obsesses over Bucky Barnes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Hades Puppy for lending a critical eye, and Taja for your expertise, as well as the other kind people who offered to help me with this.

# PART ONE

 

Something happened on the day of the last game before Thanksgiving.

“Hey guys, real question here,” Dum Dum said while putting his jersey on. “Are marshmallows gay?”

“Are you serious,” Morita said from his corner of the locker room.

“Yeah,” Bucky answered—as in—yes, actually, they are.

“Can’t believe I’m asking this,” Steve said, “but, please elaborate.”

Dum Dum took a moment to choose his words, then offered the eloquent elaboration, “I mean, it’s pretty gay to put marshmallows in your hot chocolate, so it stands to reason, that it’s just as gay —if not gayer—to put marshmallows on your sweet potatoes.”

“No, right, I shouldn’t have asked,” Steve said to himself.

“And what sort of value are we putting into the word ‘gay’ in this instance?” asked Monty, showing his academic sensibility.

“You know...” Dum Dum shrugged, either fresh out of eloquence or aware that he was in deep shit should he actually provide a definition. “Just _gay_.”

“How many times are we gonna hafta have this talk, Dum Dum?” Steve said, trying to land somewhere between a warning and indifference, to extinguish any further speculation.

“I guess I’m sups gay then,” Gabe concluded. “Fucking love that shit.”

The fall semester had started out innocuous enough. It was Steve's third year of college, his second season as a starter for the Howlies. It continued to be the year of our Lord, 2007, as it had been since that previous January. Dick Cheney was still president. _The Da Vinci Code_ was still thought of as a documentary. The war on terror was going on its sixth official year. Britney Spears was in the news a lot—Beckham had jumped the pond to play for LA Galaxy. But all Steve was focused on was keeping up his GPA and winning the College Cup.

The game was on a Sunday. Home advantage against St John’s, as part of the second round in the NCAA tournament. Meaning, from that point on, it was win all or kiss the title goodbye. The weather was cold, but only as cold as one might expect of the Northeastern climate this time of year, and not so bad as to be distracting once warm-up was underway. Steve was captain this season because, as management put it, “He had the face for it.” One might conclude that it was for that reason he was so often spotted at the front of every pregame exercise and jogging train—even though Bucky was the one actually keeping the guys in line, were it ever needed.

All in all, it was a normal day, and everyone was acting accordingly. Normal. That wasn’t to say that every member of the Howlies, and every coach, trainer, and adamant supporter, wasn’t vibrating out of their skin with nerves. The pregame rituals were followed to a T, banter and serious conversations were brought down to a minimum. It was not a time for bragging or making predictions.

Before leaving the locker room, Steve and Bucky sat across from one another on the bench to tie each other’s shoes. This was their custom. Steve was of a mind to ask Bucky to please, maybe, take the captaincy off his hands. But this was not the first time he had had that thought. Steve knew, just as he knew everybody else knew, that Bucky was better suited for it: face-wise and otherwise. Not that anyone had any real complaints, as far as Steve was aware. In fact there weren’t all that many duties of a captain to warrant complaints in the first place. And captain or not, Steve wasn’t the kind of person to keep his disapprobation quiet: so realistically, the title was only put into effect during the coin toss. As far as inner struggles went, It was a moot point, but his anxiety had to fixate on something.

No, it wasn’t the first time Steve felt inclined to raise the question of his captaincy with Bucky, but of course he didn’t end up doing so. Nor would he ever. Some things shouldn’t be discussed; it would only plant ideas of agreement or pity where there previously had been nothing but neutrality. So Steve just sat there nicely and concentrated on tying Bucky’s laces to the perfect degree of tightness, just like Bucky was doing for him. It wasn’t that big of a deal anyway... once Steve set foot on the grass, he would inevitably fall into a chipper mood. That was his flavor this season, his zest. No clouds of doubt would be spotted on the horizon of those blue eyes.

Bucky, as though having already deciphered all of Steve’s disarrayed thoughts without him uttering so much as a sigh, squeezed Steve’s shoulder and gave him a meaningful look, right as they were about to enter the arena. It couldn’t be translated into words, not even to Steve, but the impact of the gesture was as intended. Steve was just about skipping out onto the pitch. Smiling, excited, and with a focus that was laser-sharp.

“Let’s fucking ruin these degenerates,” was Steve’s inspiring closing line, the moment before kick-off, well met with roars of agreement from the Howlies.

In the 81st minute the score was a tie holding over from the first half. One-one. Not all that much ruination to speak of.

This very minute, Steve was moving downfield so that Bucky would be able to bounce the ball off him and break free from the defender harassing him. As he came into position he watched Bucky do a beautiful little feint, and was just about certain that Bucky would get past the defense without the maneuver Steve had had in mind.

What followed instead was that the defender struck his arm out, catching Bucky straight in the neck. He fell to the ground on all fours and the defender played the ball forward as if nothing had happened.

This was when something in the timespace continuum altered from its thereto familiar path into something slowly, yet progressively bizarre. When a microscopic gear inside Steve’s machinery clicked and began a chain reaction of events. Too subtle to take notice of then and there, and too subtle still, to trace back to this very second—once said events made their claim on this timeline.

What was noticeable to Steve, was how all of the good-natured fighting spirit left his body without a vestige. It was immediately replaced with the ice-cold fury that, as a golden rule, Steve kept strictly separate from his soccer career. It was the sort of fury that gave him tunnel vision and an instantaneous headache. It was the sort of fury that, in short, was the cause of many a controversy in Steve’s life.

A ringing had started up in his ears as his feet made to close the distance between him and Bucky. Bucky, who was not breathing, but writhing, his head hanging down between his bracing arms; his hands gripping the grass, white-knuckled.

An uproar could be heard from the student section, people booing and yelling in outrage. The wave of energy coursing through the Howlies supporters travelled through the aether and shook Steve like a small earthquake

“It’s okay,” Steve vaguely heard Morita say. He couldn’t see Bucky’s face, but he could feel his panic as though it transmitted from his curved back straight into Steve's body. “Just take a breath,” Morita continued. He looked up and stopped Steve in his tracks with a raised hand.

An athletic trainer took over from Morita, and Steve turned away. His heart rate wasn’t slowing down, despite the deep breaths. The scene played itself over again in his mind—there was something so incredibly provoking in the way it had taken place. Steve had seen his fair share of foul play, but this was particularly offensive to him. The longer he considered it, the surer he became that the hit hadn’t been an accidental, uncoordinated flailing on the enemy player’s part. It was something done with precision, and absurd malice.

The referee had blown the whistle but the defender, number five, was casually walking in the other direction. He was a very broad guy, with unnecessarily big arms—but that sort of fact had never held much sway in Steve’s past life and it sure as hell didn’t matter now.

“Hey- oh...! Hold your horses, cowboy…” Morita muttered, as he came up beside Steve to grab him, just as Steve was about to grab Number Five.

Steve wasn’t even all that aware of what he was planning to do, he just felt that cold rage lead his body on and white out any rational thought his head could offer up as counterargument. He wasn’t about to fight his own teammate though, and Morita knew as much. (Even if he did strain against Morita’s steel grip on his arm.)

Instead he only raised his voice enough that it would reach the guy, and asked with genuine wonder, “What _the fuck_ are you doing?!”

Number Five turned his head as he continued walking, and grinned at Steve like a sociopathic horse.

“Hey! No fighting, Cap!” Morita said sharply as Steve tore himself free. “It’s not worth it.”

Suddenly Gabe was there as well, blocking his way and talking him down. Steve was forcibly turned around and saw that Bucky was kneeling, with the ref and the trainer, as well as two other Howlies players beside him, waiting to help him stagger off the field. The bloodlust was overshadowed by another impulse, one so unwelcomed as to be unformulated and unrecorded even in the safety of Steve’s own mind. This, at the sight of Bucky slowly getting to his feet. It came and went like a gust of wind shivering through the crown of a tree. Bucky looked up at Steve and smiled lopsidedly, which was to say that he was fine, and perhaps also _go on._ Get ‘em.

The crowd clapped as he left the field, a despondent round of applause, if ever there was such a thing.

Steve’s eyes strayed to the Howlies’ second forward, standing some yards away, covering his mouth with both hands in what looked like an attempt to smother laughter. It was Steve’s least favorite person and, as luck would have it, roommate: finding something funny in a completely humorless situation. Fucking _William_. Steve couldn’t help but think of a few choice derogatory phrases as he spotted him, directing his anger at a familiar target. It made for a meek substitute. But besides still being angry, he also felt embarrassed—like _he_ had been the cause of all the commotion.

There was no penalty. Yet everyone fought like no tomorrow for the remainder of the game, and Steve scored with only two minutes on the clock to spare. Some might say it was pure spite, more than talent and skill.

 _Fuck you, go to hell, eat shit_ , Steve thought as he shook the hands of St John’s’ sour-looking players.

"Easy, boy," Gabe said, squeezing Steve's shoulders.

Steve couldn't reply, he couldn't even look Gabe in the face.

When they were done with their cool down, the sun had almost set. Steve looked around for Bucky, but he had left long before and not come back. He briefly entertained the thought of seeking out Number Five to have a _constructive dialogue_ with him, but had to begrudgingly admit that he wasn’t quite at that loss of impulse control yet. He caught the eye of Sharon, who had stayed behind with a couple other UConn students. At least he would have back-up if, by some fateful happenstance, he did stumble into an altercation this evening.

Sharon always showed up to watch their games when her schedule allowed it. Which, granted, wasn’t often. But everyone on the team still made a big deal out of it. Steve nodded at her and tried a smile, but he didn’t walk over to the sideline to say hi. Dum Dum came up behind him and threw a heavy arm around his shoulders.

“You should’ve decked him. Why didn’t ya? I would’ve had your back, man,” he told Steve.

“Shut the fuck up, Dum Dum,” Morita said, exasperated. He was walking alongside Gabe, behind Steve and Dum Dum. They were the last players to leave the field.

“I saw it! He totally hit him!” Dum Dum protested.

“You didn’t see shit.”

Dum Dum ignored Morita and turned his attention back to Steve. They had entered the hallway en route to the locker room, and Steve kept half a watch out for a familiar figure.

“You’re gonna have to look after him tonight. He might die in his sleep.”

“That’s head injuries,” Steve said, somewhat confident in his medical knowledge, but still chilled at the thought. “But he can sleep in my room if he wants to, Näslund won’t be there anyway. He might be grateful at a night away from your snoring ass.”

“My ass doesn’t snore. It’s my sinuses, my nasal passages are too narrow…” Dum Dum explained, as though for the first time, and went on to talk idly about other passages of his body to everyone’s groans of disapproval. Then, back on the subject of Bucky: “Anyway, he’ll need someone to nurture him back to health, so you better take him.”

“Yeah, he’ll need some lovin’, poor guy,” Gabe said, which made Morita scoff.

Steve’s internal response was much like Morita’s. He imagined Bucky was getting loved on by some hot medic in this very moment. Maybe Miranda. “So why don’t you?” Steve asked Dum Dum.

“I have an early flight. I need my beauty sleep.”

“Right, right,” they all agreed, with a collective eye-roll.

But Steve knew that Dum Dum was genuine in his concern. He probably wanted to make sure Bucky was going to be okay for the next couple of hours, but he would rather arrange it so that it was someone else’s responsibility. As would Gabe and Morita. Besides, they all knew that Bucky preferred Steve, even though Dum Dum and the others had known each other longer. They had already played together for a year when Steve entered the picture. Gabe and Bucky went even further back than college.

Bucky wasn’t in the locker room, so Steve couldn’t ask him if he wanted to take Näslund’s bed for the night. His cell was out of credit so he couldn’t text, and even if it hadn’t been, it lay forgotten in his dorm anyway.

 

_____________________

 

He walked slowly back to his neck of campus. The weather was freezing now and he only wore a windbreaker over his t-shirt, like the hardcore moron he was. In the locker room the atmosphere had been rowdy and cheerful—one more victory in the bag, as well as most of the guys looking forward to going home for the holidays. Steve was also looking forward to going home, and he was relieved that he hadn’t botched the game, but he still felt out of sorts.

After stopping by the dining hall he trudged back to his room and made a beeline for his bed; got up again to look for his cell phone, in an increasingly incensed manner, that he wanted to blame on William. Plugged it in to charge once found under an open textbook, then returned with finality to bed. He was tired. But it was a kind of mental tiredness, more than a physical one. In fact, his body felt jittery and unable to relax. For about half an hour he sat propped against the wall with his sketchbook in his lap, tapping a pencil against its edge in a nervous, unmusical arrangement.

A sharp rap at the door startled him out of his thoughts.

“Oh,” Steve said, surprised, at the sight of Bucky on the other side of the door. He was smiling, looking perfectly normal except for a faint bruise on his chin. “Hey.” Steve tried to discreetly check out Bucky’s neck for any damage, but couldn’t really make anything out in the dim lighting.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bucky said breezily, and pushed past Steve in the doorway. He looked around in the small room as if to make sure that it was only Steve there. “I thought I’d keep you company, now that your BFF has left for Switzerland.”

“Sweden,” Steve corrected out of habit. Everyone knew William was a Swede, he couldn’t go a day without bringing it up. “That’s cool, I guess. I was looking forward to a night alone, but, whatever…”

“Oh, were you now?” Bucky gave him a lewd smirk and threw his bag on William’s bed, then sat down next to it.

Steve felt heat flare up in his face unexpectedly, so he turned away and started to put his sketchbook and pencils in order. He hadn’t meant it to sound lascivious. But if it’s one thing he should have learned by now, it’s that everything can sound dirty to a dude in his early twenties. The only real difference between them and your standard 15-year-old, was the somewhat increased likelihood of them actually getting to do something dirty. As opposed to just endlessly talk about it.

“Were you thinking of _being alone_ with Sharon, or was it that other mistress, your right hand?”

“Fuck off,” Steve sighed and collapsed onto his bed for the third time, to marvel at the ceiling.

“I can put my headphones on-“ Bucky offered and Steve laughed despite himself.

“But really... why didn’t you hang out with Sharon? She was at the game. Didn’t you see her?”

“I saw her. Her parents were picking her up after.”

This was Bucky’s usual, gentle line of questioning. He didn’t push quite as much as the other guys, but he still made it known to Steve that he thought Steve was an ingrate. Missing opportunity after opportunity as he apparently did.

“You should’ve asked her to stay ‘til tomorrow. She probably wanted you to,” Bucky said, self-assured in his expertise on the secret hopes and desires of women. Sharon in particular—though he barely spoke to her. At least not in the presence of Steve.

If Sharon had wanted to hang out with him, presumably to sleep with him, Steve was fairly certain she would have gone about it in a less convoluted way. Why should his free time be spent exclusively in the pursuit of getting laid, anyway? As if anyone.of their friends—present company included—was doing that much better.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked him after a moment’s silence.

“Uh huh.”

“Gabe said you were ready to drag that guy down by the hair and smack him.”

Steve thought he heard a weird note in Bucky’s voice, something hidden that he couldn’t decipher.

“I was pissed,” Steve admitted.

Bucky chuckled. “You’re such a drama queen.”

Steve sat up with excessive force, not helping the case he was about to make.

“He coulda killed you,” Steve said, finally meeting Bucky’s eyes and not backing down. Bucky, whose eyebrows had been rising slowly, simply broke out laughing. “Honestly, he could’ve snapped your neck! He was fucking insane.” All of this was declared with almost breathless incredulity—again, not helping to convince anyone of Steve’s estrangement from drama.

Steve rose and went to sit by Bucky on the other bed. “Let me look at you,” he said, like a very stern nurse, and tried to turn Bucky’s chin up. “Did they check you out? Shouldn’t you’ve been sent to get an x-ray? Your thyroid gland might be hemorrhaged.”

Bucky was pulling his head away and slapping at Steve’s hands, not able to stop laughing.

“Hemorrhaged? Okay, Meredith Grey,” Bucky said, but Steve didn’t understand the reference, and only smiled because the sound of Bucky giggling was inescapably infectious.

Steve finally gave up on trying to diagnose Bucky, and settled his hands in his lap. He had concluded that Bucky’s neck may have been a little swollen on the right side of his Adam’s apple. Steve had let his fingers graze the spot. But Bucky’s movements didn’t seem restricted judging by the fuss he put up, and therefore Steve was willing to tentatively trust in the provided status report. His gaze landed on the dirty carpet in front of him, sitting too close to Bucky to keep it trained on him.

“He should be kicked off the team.”

Bucky tsked.

“I’m gonna file a complaint. I’m gonna talk to their coach.” And it was a joke, but on a deeper level it wasn’t at all. Steve was in fact quite ready to dig up the number of the St John’s head coach and give him a piece of his mind. Useless as it might have been. Steve looked over at Bucky and caught his sideways glance. He was smiling to himself, like he could see through the parody. Steve swallowed and tried to think of another topic of conversation.

After seconds upon seconds of sitting next to each other in silence it got to be too much, and Steve got up to fiddle with the stuff on the desk by the window, as if considering what to pack. But really, just feeling a vague frustration that was new and foreign, especially in the company of Bucky. He was saved from having to come up with something to distract them, by Bucky suggesting they use William’s set-up to play video games.

“Ugh, doesn’t he feel like playing soccer every day in real life is _enough_ , I mean- does he really need to have three different soccer games on console too?” Bucky said as he looked through William’s stash.

Steve didn’t particularly like video games over all, but he saw Bucky’s point. If he had to choose, he could waste an hour on _Tomb Raider_ , but Bucky chose a dull race car game. Steve got bored within fifteen minutes, and not only because he sucked and crashed into things to an inordinate extent. The whole concept of going round in circles was monotonous whichever way you played it.

Bucky however, got inspired—and now he squeezed past Steve, after winning thrice over, to put another disc in the PlayStation.

So they ended up watching _2 Fast 2 Furious_ , despite the fact of both having seen it before. Steve resisted making any complaints about Bucky’s choice, seeing as he didn’t feel like going to sleep and was out of alternatives. He was situated at the foot of William’s bed, leaning back on his elbows—now both, now just one—having to change position every ninety seconds from lack of blood flow. Before long, Bucky pulled him up to sit in the tight space beside him instead, leaned against the wall. There was a light fixture between their heads, which meant that Steve couldn’t really glance over and study Bucky’s face as he watched. But he kept doing it regardless. Taking in the details that were visible—like the line of his eyebrow or a twitch in his jaw—paying little to no attention to the movie.

Bucky’s leg and arm were warm against Steve’s body. Warm enough to make him sweat. Bucky was wearing a long-sleeved polo shirt with the collar popped, probably thinking he looked cool, whereas Steve knew for a fact that he looked objectively stupid. But at least Bucky hadn’t doubled down on the polos (yet), as Steve had seen other guys do for some sublime reason.

Monica was sunbathing in a white bikini on screen. Steve was thinking about that Korean place in Hell’s Kitchen where he wanted to bring Bucky, and how convenient it would have been for Bucky simply to stay in New York with him over the holiday. If so, they could have jogged in Prospect Park together and spotted each other in the gym, and maybe seen the parade or gone to the Brooklyn Museum—stuff Bucky hadn’t done since he was a kid. All the things he had relayed to Steve with nostalgia.

The movie kept happening without Steve actually registering any of it, and soon enough the final car chase was on. After the _Duke’s of Hazzard_ move—where the protagonists jumped onto a yacht with their car—best pals Brian and Roman were metaphorically riding off into the sunset together.

“Woo!” Bucky exclaimed (with what Steve hoped was sarcasm), when the car-jump happened. The only other thing Bucky had said for the duration of the movie, was to comment on how ripped Roman was as he took off his shirt to dramatically smash the window of a red Porsche, in one of the early scenes.

“Let’s open a garage together,” Bucky said presently, and tugged at Steve’s t-shirt. This was what Brian and Roman were planning to do in the closing scene, that much Steve had gathered.

“I don’t know shit about cars,” Steve said. Not to mention that he didn’t even possess a driver’s license. He grabbed Bucky’s wrist to pry his hand off his shirt.

“I’ll teach you.”

Instead of relenting, Bucky shoved hard at Steve’s shoulder, almost sending him flying off the mattress.

“ _God damn it_.”

“Don’t you want to?” Bucky continued, choked from struggling against Steve, who was trying to pin him down and punch him in the guts at the same time.

“I don’t give a shit about cars,” Steve replied. “We’re gonna play in the Major League, remember? Did you hit your head?”

“Ow!”

Bucky’s left hand came free and he hit Steve in the side with it. They wrestled precariously, almost falling off the bed. As it went on, it became more aggressive. Steve became worked up, annoyed even. Bucky just wouldn’t let up. He both pinched Steve and pulled his hair, which were dirty moves that Steve foolishly had thought them too good for.

Somewhere out of left field, and weirdly unstartling to his mind, the fact made itself known to Steve, that Bucky was at least half-hard from this. And the thing was. Well. Steve was, too.

He hadn’t _meant_ to discover this, just as he hadn’t _meant_ to end up between Bucky’s legs.

From one moment to the next they weren’t really fighting anymore; though it might have looked like they were, since Steve was still pinning Bucky’s wrists to the mattress, looming over him. After a second’s consideration that lasted as long as it took him to press his pelvis against Bucky’s, Steve was letting go with one hand to hitch Bucky’s left thigh over his hip and rut against him, in a wholly unmistakable manner.

And, yeah. Bucky was onboard with this, as easily as if they had discussed it beforehand, or maybe even done it many a time previously. Although, neither one seemed to be thinking about that—they seemed to be thinking in guttural moans and zealous _yeses_ , even in fervent _ah, ah, ah’s_. Much like the way they were vocalizing, although the thoughts and the sounds hadn’t a connection, they just happened to occur simultaneously and in unison. At least that was the case with Steve.

But then again, they weren’t _not_ fighting. Bucky’s left hand latched onto Steve’s hair and pulled once more, and with his other, he was struggling out of Steve’s hold. Steve raked his fingers down Bucky’s side in a none too gentle way. Then up his leg, like he couldn’t make up his mind where to go with it. Yet, none of that was in retaliation. It was merely because fu-u-u-ck, _yeah._ Bucky’s right hand came free and he used the opportunity to squeeze Steve’s ass, resulting in a noise that under any other circumstance would have been relentlessly mocked for its pathetic nature.

It wasn’t like Steve hadn’t done this sort of thing before. There had been a fair share of awkward yet enthusiastic dry humping in his teenage past. But in those cases, certain motions had built up to the event—or with a few select people, the possibility of sex had always just co-existed, like a cloud of horniness hanging over them. It hadn’t been a switch that flipped, turning some friendly dicking around to something actually pertinent to his dick.

Of course, that had all been with women.

It had never been with his best friend who was also a guy.

But then—as he would have told anyone, Steve wasn’t thinking about that in this moment. He was only chasing the rush, the intense frustration and satisfaction that seemed to follow one another in circles and blend together and split apart into consecutive and opposing sensations, then coalesce anew. It wasn’t _enough_ , in some way, and that feeling gave rise to the momentum. At the same time, Steve’s whole being felt constricted and on the verge of endangerment. Like he should stop himself.

He didn’t stop. He kept rubbing against Bucky, pressing their bodies together. Grabbing at his thigh, his bicep, his hair.

Bucky fisted his hands in the fabric at the back of Steve’s shirt and seemed to come with a short sigh and an abortive moan. The whole residence hall was quiet, the pathway below the window was quiet, and the two of them appeared to be of a single mind that they too needed to be quiet.

Steve’s mind blanked out for a second as a wave of pleasure, more akin to relief than ecstasy, charged through him. He couldn’t help but fall over a bit and let his full weight rest on Bucky, crushing him slightly. Bucky was breathing hard through his nose. Lying atop of him, spent, Steve now felt a sudden coldness infuse him. Icy tendrils that slipped down his back like sweat. It was amazing how quickly the orgasm faded. He could neither relax nor move away for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only two minutes.

Underneath his face, Bucky’s heart was hammering.

They disentangled, both in a state of sleepy shock, and neither one would remember exactly how it happened later. Only that they did in fact, consciously move apart. Steve ended up on the right side, back pressed to the wall. The bed was too narrow for them to lie shoulder-to-shoulder, therefore they had to make do with facing each other—the position they took when they were sharing a bed under normal circumstances.

But neither Bucky nor Steve could look the other in the eye. So they fell asleep unbearably close together, faces hidden from view as best they could.

 

_____________________

 

Steve’s freshman year of college had left him with a weird feeling. A gloomy state of mind that was the complete opposite of what one would have expected. A social hangover. It had been a year like none other, full of successes and new experiences. It had been perfect, for all intents and purposes. Steve had found his people.

In high school he had risen from relative obscurity to join the ranks of the popular kids, as his body went through a drastic growth spurt and he began to stand out on the soccer field. Sure, he had more than one friend by the end of senior year of high school, which was more than could be said for the years leading up to it. But mostly he spent his time in solitude. Weekdays as well as weekends—on the soccer field and off it.

There always seemed to be this bubble around him, a sheet of glass between him and his peers. Maybe it was an unfortunate circumstance born out of the fact that most kids Steve knew were part of friend groups that had formed way back when. At a time when Steve was still no more than a stick-figure-stick-in-the-mud. Someone who was out sick for extended periods every year, and who brawled more than was strictly plausible.

There simply hadn’t been a consensus on whether or not Steve should be taken seriously. Not until he reached the mature age of 17, backlit by the glamor and gravitas of his high school sporting achievements.

At that point, an increasing number of people were willing to give him a shot, and in doing so, valiantly tried to come close to him. Girls and boys alike wanted his attention and would even listen to some of his more pontificating opinions without much damage done to their will to live. But the fact sort of remained. Steve was either a bullheaded, self-righteous asshole; or failing that, an awkward, boring asshole. And so, no one really got that far in exploring a friendship with Steve. Most came to some point of contention, at some point (often early on) in their acquaintance with him. They usually opted to keep their distance.

But of course _he had_ had friends. Arnie had been his friend—maybe more so out of loyalty than deep affection. Riley had been his friend. Be that as it may, that Riley happened to be friends with everybody, so it wasn’t out of any particular, refined matriculation... Bernie, who tended to refer to him by both first and last name (and middle initial if she was being severe), had definitely been Steve’s friend. Probably due to her insatiable need to debate, which he had done his best to contend with.

Bernie would debate a bully into punching himself in the face, and debate herself out of detention afterwards. This was her premier charm, according to Steve. Bernie had been a devoted participant of the math team, the drama group, the school orchestra, and of course, the debate team. She was class president for two years running in middle school, only abdicating the position in eighth grade to focus on her application for prep school, as well as her field hockey advancement.

Now she went to Cornell, which was information Steve had apprehended through the grapevine, not because they kept in touch.

For an exquisitely short-lived period, Bernie had been Steve’s girlfriend. It was the Golden Age of middle school for one Steven G. Rogers. But as it turned out, Bernie could be bothered to do a lot of things—however, holding hands while walking to Social Studies, or the close-mouthed kissing that followed wrestling on the hockey field after practise, turned out _not_ to be among them.

She simply couldn’t make the time.

The dissolution of their relationship could have been asserted on the grounds of desertion—on behalf of one Steven G. Rogers—if such things as middle school relationships required a legal resolution. This at least, according to one Captain of the Vinegar Hill Middle School debate team, Bernie C. Rosenthal.

However brief and uneventful their romance had been, Bernie and he had still been what Steve for a long time would consider _good friends_. Both in the period that preceded them going steady, as well as the year that followed. That being said, neither as girlfriend or regular-person-friend, had Bernie’s connection with Steve run deeper than surface-level. Frankly, that was the common denominator for all of his relationships.

Then college happened.

Bucky had appeared out of thin air, like a dream of what the Friend of Friends could be. Come to life on the first Sunday of orientation week. More or less walking on palm leaves. It was heaven opening up to show Steve what the platinum standard of human connection was like. Bucky was probably the reason Steve even attended college still. He was the reason Steve was a treasured member of their soccer team, the reason he was an essential part of a group of friends. The reason some women gave him sultry looks as though his reputation preceded him.

Steve had _cried_ in front of Bucky; showing grief before, and accepting comfort from, another human being. It had been the first time for him, in what was likely a decade of shouldering any great burden on his own.

And why should he have done that? He was a grown man, and even though he didn’t subscribe to the whole machismo ideal of the Stoic Male, he sure as fuck wasn’t okay with crying in company. Especially not in the company of another man. But with Bucky, trust like that came naturally. Secrets were shared avidly, passed back and forth like tokens of loyalty and affection. Not about everything of course—God no, _everything_ was far from disclosed. But enough for Steve to reel from the novelty of intimacy, whenever he thought about it for too long.

Enough for Steve to realise only after his first year at UConn, at the very beginning of summer break and facing an indefinite amount of time away from Bucky—that he had never even begun to grasp the concept of friendship before then. Loneliness was a condition that had permeated Steve’s very being for his entire life up to that point, and he hadn’t even known it. Only could he have speculated on the subject of closeness, like a boy imagining life on another planet.

There was no going back from that.

 

_____________________

 

On Monday morning after the game against St John’s, Steve and Bucky slept in for about an hour. That day they were going to get on a bus for New York. Bucky was taking a flight out of Newark that his parents had paid for. It was a four hour bus trip to Port Authority, from where they would walk to arrive at Penn Station and say goodbye.

The drive to New York wasn’t awkward per se, but it was tight-lipped. When Steve woke up and oriented himself—hitting upon the reason why Bucky and he were sharing a single bed, instead of Steve sleeping in his own—it felt as if the events of the night before were no more than a weird dream. The evening was distant to him in a similar way to how certain hospital visits felt unreal, once a few hours had passed safely outside of it. Steve would have convinced himself nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, if it weren’t for certain damning evidence.

Bucky showered and dressed and was ready to leave in record time. They had to wait for fifteen minutes in the frigid morning air, as they arrived early at the bus stop. Steve felt both jittery and stiff, maybe in anticipation of the long ride spent stationary that was ahead of him. He would have preferred to have squeezed in a jog before leaving. But waking up cold, except for his face and forearms which were pressed against Bucky’s torso, he had opted to just keep on dozing in that position for a bit longer. Bucky had leaned away from him for a second and turned the alarm off.

No discussion required.

“Do you want my gloves?” Bucky asked him, voice low, like it had gone hoarse. Steve wondered if his throat was sore from the injury, but it didn’t seem likely.

Steve took his hands out from where they had been unsuccessfully jammed into the front pockets of his jeans.

“No, I’m fine,” he said, and refrained from rubbing them together.

“Mhm,” Bucky said.

That was just about the extent of their conversation for the remainder of the trip. Steve questioned Bucky a little about the Barnes family menu plan for Thanksgiving. Did they have sweet potatoes? Did they involve marshmallows in their dishes? Apparently they did, but Bucky was more invested in the roasted vegetables and the butter rolls, not to mention the ham and turkey.

Steve didn’t really get why you would need both ham _and_ turkey, but to each their own. He reiterated that his mom and he were going to eat Chinese take-out and apple pie. They were both of them people of simple tastes, and even simpler cooking skills. Bucky looked disturbed, even though it wasn’t his first time hearing of this tradition.

“Next year you’ll take your mom to Indiana for Thanksgiving, right?” Bucky asked Steve, apropos of their earlier conversation. They had stopped in front of the turnstiles at Penn Station to finally go their separate ways.

“Yeah, naturally,“ Steve said. “That is… if your family doesn’t want to return home to Brooklyn…?” to which Bucky only chuckled mirthlessly.

Steve smiled but it slipped off his face as soon as Bucky looked away. Both of them let their gazes roam around the station without having their eyes meet.

Bucky cleared his throat and stepped into a one-armed, one-sided hug—roughly patting Steve on the back. “See you in a week,” he said, and backed away.

“See ya,” Steve said numbly, and Bucky turned and started walking away. “You sure you’ll find the platform on your own?” Steve called after him, which earned him a grin and middle-finger thrown his way.

For once Steve was a bit relieved to see him go.

 

_____________________

 

If Steve thought of their bodies as objects whose arousal happened to coincide, then that wasn’t gay at all. That was just something that happened to happen to them. Like when sorority sisters synchronised their menstrual cycles. That didn’t make them witches, and it didn’t prove the McClintock effect either.

Maybe it was just a mathematical probability—a certain number of gay experiences per year, predetermined by nature, divided by a certain number of college students. In that case, Steve (like Bucky) was merely fulfilling an inevitable quota, and it didn’t bear any significance on his actual life.

With this reasoning, Steve put the little mishap behind him. Before the holiday was over, he had started to miss Bucky, and was eager to see him again the coming Monday. Assured in the knowledge that everything was precisely as it had always been between them.

As well as within himself.

 

_____________________

 

The day Steve turned 20 was probably the best spent birthday of his life.

His sophomore year of college behind him, he was put up at the Barnes’ house for a week in Shelbyville; the sleepy little town they had moved to after living in New York City for more than 15 years.

The really messed up thing was that Bucky had lived in Brooklyn for most of those years, a mere stone’s throw away from Steve himself. If Steve had only been aware of this, say, by way of a message through a wormhole, he would have begged the coach of Bucky’s club to take him on. Gladly, he would have traveled the extra distance every week just to have Bucky in his life like he did now.

Bucky said travel backwards in time, even in the form of a mere message on a post-it, was impossible by virtue of the Chronology Protection Agency, and stuff like the grandfather paradox. Therefore, Bucky argued that, _no_ , he would not make his final project a time machine to enable Steve to “Sarah Connor himself” and mend the past—which by the way, didn’t make sense as a term.

“So you wouldn’t rather like, punch Hitler in the face a coupl’a hundred times?” Bucky had asked him, regarding the time travel idea.

“Sure,” Steve had answered. “I could do both though.” And after slight consideration, he amended with, “Actually, I’d kidnap Hitler as an infant and raise him to be a good person instead. I’d still encourage him to lead Germany, but with an anti-fascist agenda.”

“Hm,” Bucky had intoned, and tilted his head. “Smart.”

Now, Steve’s mom—and dad, when he was alive—had made sure that his birthdays were splendid occasions. There were no complaints to be made of the first 19 celebrations, whatsoever. Despite this, Steve had never felt as fulfilled as he did on July fourth, 2007, in Shelbyville, Indiana of all places—600 miles away from his beloved mother and homestead.

On July third, Bucky gave Steve an overzealous welcome at the airport and they drove from Indianapolis in George Barnes’ pickup truck with the windows rolled down. They traveled at a leisurely speed, past lakes and fields of grain. listening to a Spice Girls CD that Bucky claimed was his sister's, yet to which he sang along effortlessly, and at moments, passionately. It had Steve in stitches.

Steve thought Bucky drove like a pensioner, and the car was hot from the lack of AC, but neither factors had any impact on his high spirits. He was nervous about meeting Bucky’s family, especially his dad. Bucky’s mom, Winifred, liked to talk to Bucky’s friends on the phone—meaning she and Steve were already acquainted. One could make the case that she was more interested in conversing with them than with her actual son, seeing as those talks often lasted longer. Winifred would explain that she wanted unbiased information about the goings-on at campus, as they related to Bucky. Steve was naturally an invaluable source, so who could blame her for working him.

Bucky had three younger sisters. Becca, Ada, and Alice. Only Ada was sensible enough to play soccer, and she was away at camp for said sport. Becca’s softball team had made second place in the World Series, so she was technically doing better than Bucky and Steve, whose best placement (and in Steve’s case: only NCAA placement) at that point was third. When it came to Alice, Bucky said he didn’t know what she was about. She had tried sports, she had been a girl scout, she had played the guitar, she had tried to start a coven, she had been in a R/C model boat club… She had probably picked up and left off eleven other hobbies since last Bucky spoke to her. Girls of that age got up to some crazy, mystical shit, Bucky explained to Steve, so he would do well to keep at a safe distance from Alice.

“Here we are,” Bucky said as they came upon the corner lot of an idyllic little street on the outskirts of town. Great big, leafy trees gave shade to empty, lush, perfectly green lawns. Flags waved on every lot. Nearly every house on the street was painted white, as was the Barnes’ home.

“Very American,” Steve said.

What really struck him was how large the house was. Even the garage looked oversized.

“Isn’t it,” Bucky agreed and climbed out of the car, taking Steve’s bag with him.

Bucky’s parents came out and greeted them on the veranda. Winifred hugged him and George shook his hand. Once inside, Steve was quick to dispose of the gifts he had brought them.

“Oh, lovely! That’s so sweet of you Steve,” Winifred said about the Turkish delight he handed her. Which was nice, since it was Winifred who had told him what to buy.

“Single malt,” George said in a way Steve hoped was approving. He held the bottle up. but leaned away from it to read the label, the way long-sighted people do.

“It’s Irish,” Steve filled in, even though it probably said so quite clearly on the bottle. “My mom’s Irish, so.”

“Ah, really? I think we have some Irish descendants from way back in the day in our family, too,” George said. He spoke in a sort of murmur, balanced between gruffish and soft, like he rather wouldn’t be talking at all but was well aware of the necessity. “Great,” he concluded with a half-hearted gesture, waving the bottle very slightly, frowning in a friendly manner at Steve.

Steve nodded and smiled, glad for that particular courtesy ritual to be dealt with. Bucky had been busying himself in the kitchen, probably to avoid having to watch Steve’s attempt to ingratiate himself to his parents. But now he sidled up to Steve and offered him a glass of water, which Steve almost dropped on the floor. Winifred and George graciously moved on and pretended not to notice. Steve felt equal parts awkward and happy, trying to drink while Bucky lost it at his incompetence.

On the fourth Steve woke up before his alarm like usual, despite having gone to bed late the night before. He rose from the covers to quickly get ready in the bathroom. All so that he could then jump on top of Bucky, who was still on his belly, snoring.

“Rise and shine, asshole!” he greeted Bucky in a hiss, straddling his back and shaking him violently by the shoulders.

Bucky made a muffled sound that was probably swearing, but sounded a lot like a cow giving birth, in Steve’s educated opinion. He told Bucky as much. This, of course, culminated in a brief battle—Bucky’s movements still mostly phlegmatic and sleep-feeble, whereas Steve held back out of chivalry.

“You’re like a dog. Dying to be taken on the day’s first walk,” Bucky complained. He had rolled over, and tried to put Steve in a headlock. Steve slipped out of it easily, laughing, and fumbling to hold Bucky’s wrists together. He felt warm and soft in Steve’s hands—kind of delicate, almost—to the point where Steve began to feel bad for playing around with him first thing in the morning.

“No, I’m like an athlete, trying to assist my teammate,” Steve countered.

Bucky pulled his arms towards himself in a sudden surge of energy, so that Steve almost toppled face-first into him. Steve held Bucky’s arms tighter. Bucky glared at him.

“Fine! Fine! Get off me, I’m up.”

After running their intervals and doing some easy strength training, they kicked a ball around in the yard with Bucky’s littlest sister. Steve tried to be a proper instructor, telling her about techniques and simple drills, but soon this too devolved into a frenzied game of dragging each other to the ground by the waist.

Alice was only 13, but she was already a war dog as far as midwestern suburban standards went. She egged them on and switched allegiance as the wind blew. The thing that got to Steve was when she picked up the ball and ran with it in her arms at random, which was the last thing you were supposed to do in soccer, and frankly, even a 13-year-old should know and respect that.

“Alice!” Bucky growled in a feral way, when she picked up the ball and ran across the lawn for the fifth time. Alice, in response, shrieked as though she was being chased by a murderer. Steve looked on as they circled the lawn, then spun around the big tree far off by the hedge. Alice feinting quite skillfully and Bucky slipping on the grass.

She rushed up to Steve to take cover behind him and he stood there neutrally, like the tree had, while they danced around him. What foiled Alice was Bucky reaching out with his arms on either side of Steve, grabbing her to form an uncomfortable, fourway hug between himself, Steve, the soccer ball, and poor Alice.

This concluded Alice’s soccer participation, and Steve and Bucky were left to themselves for a cool twenty minutes.

“Look,” Alice said later on to Steve as he waited for Bucky to finish showering. “Becca’s brought her boyfriend, too.”

The two of them peeked out of the upstairs window that faced the driveway, and saw a woman with big, curly brown hair exit a sporty-looking Toyota hatchback. From the passenger side a very tall man in a dress shirt followed. Steve immediately wondered whether he should have brought a fancier shirt for the occasion.

“Is that Becca? She got a new car?” said Bucky, who had come up behind Steve to lean on him with one arm as he looked out the window with them. He hadn’t dressed yet, only wrapped in a towel, and the moisture on his skin seeped through Steve’s shirt.

“I can’t believe she got a new car without telling me,” Bucky was saying to himself, and for some reason it made Steve laugh. Alice looked at the two of them and covered her face, giggling, but no one knew why that was, either.

The customary Fourth of July barbeque turned out to be quite casual. Steve and Bucky helped set the table, which they had carried out onto the back lawn. Winifred was the grillmaster while George provided the potato salad. Bucky made dipping sauces and Steve had the honor of pouring stuff into bowls. Alice floated around putting her fingers in dishes, as she had appointed herself the distinguished role of Taster.

Watching them all flutter around the kitchen, back and forth between here and the backyard, was in itself pretty engrossing to Steve. His own home wasn’t half as energized and crowded, not even on a holiday. Even when his mom had guests over—which rarely happened—it was always a humble affair. Wherever they had been living, their apartment could never fit more than five people at a time; and getting three of his mom’s friends together for one and the same evening seemed to be a once in a century deal.

It made Steve a little sad to make the comparison. It made him feel like an inconsiderate son, in a way, to not really have ruminated on his mom’s lack of social life before now. Her socialising seemed to happen mostly in conjunction with chores. Like at the grocery store, or the laundromat. She tended to consolidate recreation with a practical purpose. Steve often thought with regret on how much she worked, so much so that the feeling had become rote and part of a greater despondency, and therefore rarely evaluated.

Steve had a fantasy that Sarah Rogers would take up another occupation—one that wasn’t as demanding as nursing, something terrifically light yet fulfilling, while Steve’s paycheck covered all the things that that sort of job inevitably couldn’t.

Bucky’s parents appeared to be living in their own private little paradise, the sort Steve wanted for his mom. But of course, that’s how any couple might look to a kid of a single parent.

The sad thought was mitigated by the music playing and the general good mood in the kitchen. The weather was nearing peak temperature, but it wasn’t the oppressive heat of New York City, which more or less made it a beautiful blessing from God. The sun shone in from high through the window and the light perfectly captured Bucky’s face as he concentrated on chopping jalapeños and grilled bell peppers and onions and whatnot.

Steve stood by the kitchen island opposite him, dismissed from helping, watching him work and revelling in the nice smells and Bucky’s quiet, parodical singing.

The sunshine and Bucky’s relaxed demeanor, the backdrop of the reddish wood cabinets, made Steve wish he was a photographer. If he really tried, maybe he could memorise the color palette, that exact expression on his friend’s face, and incorporate it in an oil painting. But he wasn’t very good at oils, and not even a photograph would be able to retell the perfect synchronicity of the yellowish light and the fragrances of spices and Bucky’s stupidly beautiful face and his stupidly beautiful voice harmonising to classic ’80s rock.

In ten years time, would Steve have a home like this? Bucky coming over with his wife, his kids—all of them spending every holiday together. Weekends, too. Whenever they could arrange it. Would they play for the same team? The Blue Spades? The national? He couldn’t imagine a future where Bucky and he weren’t still spending all their available time together.

They were called outside to get seated and Steve tried to hide the fact that he was ravenous. George offered Steve a beer and he accepted it even though it was a dumb thing to make an exception for in his nutrition plan. He tried to figure out the health benefits, versus the harm, of the bacon wrapped dates—dates? and bacon? who would have guessed!—but ended up eating five anyway. The food was delicious, and try as he might, Steve couldn’t stop himself from absolutely gorging on it.

Plates of food were passed around the crowded table, and conversation was made continuously. Often more than one at a time. Steve politely answered any question posed at him, but was otherwise quiet, very much occupied with chewing.

Winifred was smoothly interrogating Becca and her boyfriend, Marco, about their relationship, and Bucky was attempting to divert the topic by asking Marco about his studies.

“So you’re looking to become a social worker?” Bucky asked Marco, who was apparently majoring in sociology and political science.

“Maybe,” Marco said.

“And is your family Catholic, Marco?” Winifred asked him.

“Um,” Marco said with a pause, but his eyes didn’t avert from Winifred’s. “Sort of,” he settled on.

“I’m Catholic, too,” Steve chimed in, as though it would help.

“George’s family is Baptist, whereas I myself am Jewish,” Winifred explained to Marco, “but neither one of us could be considered religious. Although, now in my later years, I do find myself with a wish that at least _one_ of my children would carry on our Jewish heritage, I don’t know why. Maybe that’s what happens to all old people.”

George made a throat-clearing intonation that could be interpreted as either assent or disagreement.

“You’re not old, mom,” Bucky said diplomatically.

“Also, you’ll have to blame yourself for marrying a Baptist,” Becca said, less diplomatically.

“I’ll be Jewish if you want, mom,” Alice said. “But I’m not gonna marry anyone.”

“Oh thank you, Alice,” Winifred answered, and even George looked amused, while the rest laughed.

After sitting around to digest, dishing on the happenings in the neighborhood, as well as what Bucky and Becca’s old classmates were up to, Becca and Marco cleared the table and Alice went inside to not help. Steve was forbidden by three people from giving them a hand.

Winifred leaned against the table towards her son, as if speaking confidentially. “Did you know Natasha’s parents are splitting?”

Steve considered removing himself so that they could talk in private, but wasn’t confident he could do it with the required covertness.

“Yeah, I heard…” Bucky said.

“Do you still keep in touch?”

“We e-mail each other now and then.”

Winifred turned to Steve. “Natasha and Bucky were sweethearts in high school, did you know that? Four years! And now he’s a chronic bachelor, isn’t he?”

“Two and a half years.”

“Wow, yeah, no. That’s a long time,” Steve said in a non-answer, turning to Bucky, because he didn’t know if he was allowed to even divulge the obvious fact that Bucky was not dating anyone.

Bucky didn’t comment. He merely looked at Steve, somewhat exasperated, but good-humored.

“Are you dating anyone now, Steven?”

“No, no, I’m chronically single, too,” Steve assured her.

Winifred tilted her head and leaned it in her hand, looking thoughtful.

“But wasn’t there a Sharon-girl?”

“Yeah, Steven, what about Sharon-girl?” Bucky inquired, now looking equally thoughtful. Steve stomped on his foot.

He fumbled for a reply that wouldn’t elicit further questions and could only think to jerk his head dismissively while saying “Yeah, no,” a few times.

“It’s complicated,” Bucky filled in for his mom, who nodded in understanding. Winifred abruptly changed the subject for the 20th time, becoming serious.

“Actually, before I forget. James, your father and I are visiting your aunt next week and I’m expecting you to come as well,” she said, sounding like she was also expecting objections.

Bucky immediately changed demeanor upon hearing this. His head dropped and he looked uncomfortable in a way that was rare for Steve to witness. He regretted not making an excuse to leave earlier: now he genuinely felt like he was intruding. At a deeper level though, he was curious. He would shamefully have to admit that any new facet of Bucky was one he would jealously hoard. Even the uncomfortable ones. There was no end to that need inside of Steve that demanded to know everything about Bucky.

George came back to the table, having puttered about with the grill for a few minutes, and sat down next to Winifred. She was looking at Bucky intently, but Bucky didn’t lift his head again.

“Is Becca coming?” Bucky asked.

“Rebecca didn’t want to, she says it’ll make her too upset,” George replied, and added, “Ada is staying home as well, but Alice is going.”

“Maybe I don’t want to, either,” Bucky muttered.

Steve couldn’t deduce what the argument was about exactly, but seeing Bucky look so dejected and unsure made Steve want to save him from it regardless. All he could do was to subtly stretch his arm out atop the backrest of Bucky’s chair. After a few seconds, Bucky leaned back. Just barely touching Steve’s arm with his shoulder blades.

Neither Winifred nor George said anything more about it, but the issue seemed to have been decided. Bucky was going whether he liked it or not.

 

_____________________

 

“Happy birthday, honey,” Winifred said, handing Steve a wrapped gift. “It’s from all of us.” They had all gathered again for pie and ice cream, and now it felt like the whole Barnes family was watching him as he carefully tore the paper away. Looking flustered, probably.

The star spangled wrapping paper revealed a plastic case containing a pair of headphones. Steve looked at the headphones, and then at Winifred, in confusion.

“Wow, thank you, guys,” he said, and his obtuseness must have shown, because everyone seemed to have trouble reading his reaction. But a glint of amusement shone in Winifred’s eye.

“A little birdie told me you needed new ones,” she told Steve.

“Uh, yeah,” Steve said with an awkward little laugh. “Mine actually broke recently.” He looked around for Bucky, but he had gone away while Steve was opening the present. He hadn’t told anyone about his headphones breaking, not being one to complain about something like that—rather, being mysteriously annoyed whenever he remembered he wasn’t able to listen to his mp3-player any longer.

Steve got up and gave Winifred a quick hug, thanking her again. Not giving himself time to overthink the action until faced with thanking George, who sat next to her. He ended up shaking George’s hand, smiling bashfully and hoping he wasn’t blushing.

For some reason Steve noticed that George’s eyes were the same color as Bucky’s. He had thought that Bucky took after his mom’s appearance the most; the dark hair, the shape of his mouth, of his eyebrows. Just like Becca did—although her lips didn’t have quite the same fullness, and her hair was curlier, where Bucky’s merely took on a wavy quality when it grew long. Now he found himself wondering if George’s weathered face and light-gray hair was how Bucky would look in 25 years time.

Bucky came up behind Steve just as he debated whether he should sit back down at the table or go look for him.

“Gabe’s in town—he wants us to go to the the fair with him,” Bucky said, squeezing Steve’s shoulder hard. Steve squirmed and tried to elbow him. “He says he needs some white people to balance out his crew,” he continued wryly, having no trouble dodging Steve’s elbow and resuming the uncomfortable massage.

“I thought he was staying in Connecticut all summer?” Steve said, turning slightly towards Bucky, but not out of his grasp.

“Mommy wouldn’t have it.”

Bucky’s hand slid down to rest benevolently on Steve’s spine.

“How far is it?”

“Less than half an hour,” Bucky said, waving his free hand.

“Walking?”

“No, by car, dummy. You don’t wanna go?”

Steve shook his head.

“No, of course, let’s go,” he said. He wouldn’t have minded staying at the house, just taking it easy, shooting the breeze with Bucky and Becca and her boyfriend all night. But he didn’t exactly mind going to a fairground either—he didn’t want to leave Gabe in the lurch for that matter. Especially if he was in need of token white people.

Steve tried not to be disappointed when Bucky said he would have to ride with Becca and Marco, since Bucky was picking up another one of their friends and was denied the privilege of driving Becca’s car. After having convened in the yard, and the kitchen, then in the yard again, they finally waved goodbye to Winifred and George, and made it to the driveway where Alice caught up with them.

“I wanna go!” she said urgently, grabbing ahold of Bucky’s t-shirt.

“Sorry, baby. Grown-ups only,” Bucky replied. He pushed her gently but when she didn’t let go he cupped her face with his hands and squished her cheeks.

“I’m not a baby! You’re the baby,” Alice told him darkly, prying Bucky’s hands off her head.

“Thanks,” Bucky said with genuine warmth, which made him even more obnoxious.

Steve shoved him, in solidarity with Alice, as he turned toward the pickup truck. He saw her through the rear window of Becca's car, sitting forlorn on the steps of the veranda as they pulled out of the driveway. Or perhaps the expression she wore was rather a promise of vengeance. Steve didn’t know much about the complicated dynamics of siblings—he didn’t really understand why Alice couldn’t come along to begin with.

“So Bucky says you’re not only a jock but an artist, too,” Becca said, by way of starting a conversation.

Steve chuckled lamely.

“So what sort of art do you do?”

“Uh... I mostly paint.”

“Cool! Do you have a favorite artist?”

“I don’t know… I like Magritte, O’Keeffe, Kahlo, Kandinsky, van Gogh-“ he stopped himself “-you know. The usual gang.” He felt awkward talking about art with people he didn’t know, as if the subject awakened a fear of being misunderstood, even though he couldn’t say why that was important. He would rather have speculated on what club would win the English Premier League, or give his opinion on the senator representing whichever state he was currently in, even though those topics tended to be more inflammatory.

“Yeah, but who doesn’t appreciate the classics, huh? Although I know fuck all about art,” Becca said. “I’m really into that, um, _American Goths_ one, you know the one with the depressed farmers…? It speaks to me.”

“Mhm, Grant Wood.”

“What?”

“That’s what-”

“That’s _his name_? That’s hilarious! Oh my _God_ ,” Becca said, and threw her head back laughing, seemingly ignoring the road altogether. Say what you will about her sense of driver safety, at least she didn't go under the speed limit, like Bucky.

“How old are you turning?” Marco asked Steve, shifting in the passenger seat to meet his eye for half a nanosecond.

“Twenty.”

“Shit, officially adult.”

“That so?”

“You’re no longer a teenager, so, I mean.”

“He’s a young adult, like you, Still a youth,” Becca said.

“Nah, I'm old as pears,” Marco said, looking at Becca. She made some cooing demurral and stroked his jaw. They were driving west, headlong for the slowly sinking sun, and from Steve’s vantage point the two of them were backlit by an orange-tinted glow.

That gesture of Becca’s looked familiar to Steve. Affection that came veiled in soft sarcasm, as though it was a secret. A sweet nature that had to be concealed to some degree. It made Steve feel a dull pang in his stomach, and he didn’t know if it was because that flash of tenderness made him uncomfortable, or simply jealous of their relationship.

 

_____________________

 

This whole thing with Sharon started by accident, with no intent on either part, and it was kept in that passive, almost lazy spirit for most of their acquaintance.

Steve was walking backwards along the touchline, talking animatedly about a rally in Washington Square Park that his mom had attended, to his companions lukewarm interest. Suddenly, he tripped on some small unevenness—or maybe a sweatshirt?—and tackled Sharon into her teammates.

Thanks to the barrier they formed, he didn’t fall headlong onto the ground. He merely trampled some feet and elbowed some boobs—which was worse. The domino effect also caused one of them to spill water all over her neck and shirt, and she showed her dissatisfaction by spraying Steve with her water bottle. That at least shifted the groans into laughter.

Not counting the surprised cackles of Steve’s supposed friends, already in progress.

“Watch where you’re going, _bro_ ,“ Sharon said as she recovered her balance. She sounded annoyed, but when Steve’s alarmed eyes met hers, he thought he saw some familiar sarcasm in them.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said to her, then to the others, probably turning red. “I didn’t mean to, I’m a klutz.” The last thing he wanted was for them to think his ineptitude was a bid for their attention, like some jock in a bad comedy. But Sharon gave him a small, lopsided smile, seemingly not that bothered either way.

Someone had grabbed Steve’s wrist to belatedly pull him back as he stumbled into the group, and presently, Steve felt the hand let go of him.

He heard sniggers behind him, then Morita slapped his shoulder and said, “Meet you back inside, buddy.”

Steve glanced his way and saw him leave together with Monty.

He thought he heard Gabe whisper, “No I wanna see this,” at the same time—pointing to that he and Bucky were staying behind to wait for him. Not out of thoughtfulness, of course, but rather expecting more to the show.

Sharon happened to be standing around with players from the women’s soccer team that Steve hadn’t spoken to before, and mercifully they were quick to lose interest in him. But Sharon held his gaze, tilting her head like she was considering him. Steve noticed then that she was very pretty.

“Aren’t you the famed Steve Rogers? I hear you’re the men’s team’s best player.” She raised her eyebrows in challenge. ”But judging by your coordination just now… I have a hard time seeing that…” she trailed off.

Steve chuckled, trying to recover his dignity but finding that he was still at a loss for words. “Yeah, who said that? That does sound… fake…” He started scratching his neck. “I’d say I’m neither top nor bottom, um, in terms of, um... This team.”

“So you’re versatile,” came Bucky’s faint voice, commentating to Gabe who started giggling quite violently.

“Anyway,” said Steve, ignoring his audience of two. He didn’t understand the joke in any case. “Are you a first year? I haven’t seen you around.”

“Transfer. I went to Carolina, but I had to come back home, so.”

“Oh, wow. Tar Heels, right?”

“Yup.”

“Cool,” Steve said, genuinely impressed. He wasn’t exactly well-informed when it came to the women’s league, but he did know that the Tar Heels were consistently high-ranking. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Sharon,” she said and offered her hand, ever so formal.

Steve shook it and introduced himself as well, even though she had admitted to knowing his name already. He asked her a few more questions about the North Carolina team, how she liked her new coaches, and so on and so forth. The chit-chat continued until Sharon was called away as her team’s practice began, and Steve waved to her and didn’t think that much of it. He was glad to have come out on top from the whole falling-and-crushing-innocent-people-situation, by successfully engaging in some small talk. He hadn’t made a great impression on the others, but at least he seemed to be in Sharon’s good graces. And she _did_ take the brunt of the collision.

Steve turned around to acknowledge the two dorks who had stayed behind to observe all of this. Gabe was leaning on Bucky with an arm around his shoulders, and as Steve’s gaze landed on him, he smiled and raised his eyebrows at Steve. Bucky made a low whistling sound in agreement.

“Look at you! Lady killer,” Gabe said, confirming that any sort of interaction with a woman, ranging from apathetic to the heights of neutrality, would be interpreted as unequivocal approval where men were concerned. He let go of Bucky to push Steve around a bit, as the three of them started walking to the locker room.

Steve didn’t know where to begin.

“Don’t say. _That_ ,” he muttered, and more to himself, “why is that a term anyway?”

“Sorry, too incendiary? Casanova, then.”

“You know what the funniest thing is,” Bucky said, and when Steve looked at him, he could tell that it was going to be a low blow. Because Bucky wore a neutral expression, and on him, that was the promise of malicious pleasure.

“I wasn’t flirting with her!” Steve exclaimed in an attempt to stay ahead of the game. “You saw me fall on them. That wasn’t me being smooth.”

“You know the coach you’ve been crushing on for one plus years?” Bucky continued, not deterred in the least.

“No,” Steve answered.

“...Coulson?” Gabe suggested, although with due skepticism.

“ _Carter_ ,” Bucky corrected, and then he started to laugh. “That’s Carter’s _niece_ , you absolute lady killer-”

“-oh my god,” Gabe said and joined in the laughter.

“No, it’s not,” Steve said, as he opened the heavy door to the locker room. He drew his shirt over his head, thinking, _that can’t be right_. “Peggy’s- I mean. Carter’s too young to have a grown up niece.”

“That’s not how that works, my friend.”

“It’s okay,” Bucky said, squeezing Steve’s waist, “you have a better shot with the Carter who’s _not_ part of the staff.”

“True.”

“I wasn’t…! Look, I’m not-” Steve started, but switched tactics midway. “Suffice it to say,” he turned to Bucky who was undressing next to him now, “When I _am_ flirting. You’ll _know_.” He gave him a meaningful, stone-faced look before turning back to his own business, and was pleased when Bucky cracked up again.

“There he is, there’s the overconfident motherfucker we all know and love,” Gabe said, like the nice boy he was.

That was hardly the end of it.

 

_____________________

 

Independence Day was celebrated with music and goats and monster trucks in Shelbyville.

“We’ve missed the monster trucks and _both_ goat shows, so what the hell are we even doing here to be honest?” Gabe said after greeting Steve, Becca, and Marco at the parking lot.

“This was your idea,” Becca said and punched his arm. “Where’s the others?”

Gabe rubbed his arm discreetly.

“They’re saving us a spot,” he replied. “Where’s your others?”

“They’ll be here,” Becca said, and so the four of them stood around by the fence in waiting, until Bucky pulled up in the old red pickup truck; windows rolled down, blasting Shakira for everyone in a four mile radius to enjoy.

Becca put her face in her hand, but Marco found it delightful. Steve looked over at Gabe who raised his eyebrows and blinked at him owlishly.

The childish comfort Steve took in seeing Bucky hop out of the car was somewhat dulled when he noticed the woman who was with him. He was at once accosted with the unfounded idea that the woman was the one mentioned at dinner—Bucky’s high school girlfriend. Maybe Bucky had talked about her even before that, and Steve’s subconscious put the pieces together just from taking in her distinct appearance. Or maybe it was a lucky guess, based on the angle of Bucky’s hand on her back, as the pair walked towards them. Either way, the fleeting thought was affirmed, when Becca called out in surprise at the sight of them.

“Nat!” she exclaimed, and ran to hug her.

Natasha was not half as emotive, but she allowed both Becca and Gabe to embrace her, smiling to herself as they did.

“Hey girl,” Gabe said and let go of Natasha. Her short stature put her on the tips of her toes when hugging Gabe, but she remained perfectly balanced even as he jostled her playfully.

“Hey babe,” she said to Gabe, making his smile grow bigger.

“Nat, this is Marco—Marco, Natasha.” Becca made a gesture between them, and then pushed Marco forward. He gave Becca a quick glance, before putting his hand out for Natasha to shake. Natasha took a second to accept the handshake. One of her sharp eyebrows raised, as she examined Marco’s face. It was enough to make a guy break out in a cold sweat.

Steve promptly understood her appeal.

“Nice to meet you,” Natasha said in a thin voice, neither cold nor warm, but still conveying some primal warning. She turned her piercing eyes Steve’s way. He thought he did a decent job of keeping his face neutral.

“And I take it this is the famed Steven,” she said.

“Steve’s fine—only the plebs need add the epithet,” Steve answered.

“What makes you think I’m not one of the plebeian?”

“Well, either way, I can make an exception.”

“Okay, cool…” Bucky said, putting an arm around Natasha’s shoulders, and taking a step back with her in tow. “You’re already fast friends.” He looked over at Gabe. “Should we head in?”

“Sure,” Gabe replied, and mirrored Bucky by putting his arm around Becca’s shoulders. “Fair warning though, you’ve missed the goat show.”

They started walking toward the entrance, Steve and Marco ended up shuffling behind them. Steve glanced at Marco, and their eyes met in a sort of short and awkward acknowledgement of this.

“Fucking shit, I forgot about the goats,” Bucky said. “I worship those little nerds...”

Inside the fairground the air was a little more stagnant, warmer from the lack of a breeze. Smells shifted between fried food and that of straw and animals. It wasn’t very crowded, as most people were moving toward the firework show. From farther away the sound carried of a live band playing upbeat folksy music. The six of them cruised the immediate area for a while, trying to decide how to kill twenty minutes before the fireworks began. Becca wanted to get her face painted, because she knew the girl who was working the booth. Gabe wanted to get something to eat, and Bucky wanted to ride one of the attractions. The rest weren’t too invested.

“I don’t do makeup,” Bucky told Becca.

“Stevie? You’re an artist,” Becca said, turning to him.

Steve startled a bit at hearing Becca call him by that nickname. Only Bucky called him that, when he was being funny.

He made a face to show his reluctance, and Becca sighed. “Stop being such dudebros.”

“Yeah, stop being such bromides,” Gabe chimed in.

“Yeah, stop bro-crastinating and just do it,” Natasha said.

“You guys do it, if you’re so in touch with your feminine sides,” Bucky told them. “I hafta win a teddy bear or a goldfish for my main bro here, seeing as no one else seems to _care_ that it’s _his birthday_.”

This effectively caused everyone to make melodramatic apologies for not giving proper observation to this momentous day. Patting Steve’s arms and ruffling his hair. The little impromptu comedy routine culminated in all of them standing in a tight circle around him, singing an intensely atonal version of _Happy Birthday_.

“Thanks guys, I’m touched,” Steve told them—and in all honesty, he was. Something so insincere shouldn’t have the capacity to move someone, but there you go.

Bucky grabbed Natasha’s forearm, and to Steve’s surprise, his as well. He dragged them along like a child towing his parents, heading for the rows of game booths. He didn’t let go of either of them even as they came upon the midway and slowed to examine the games on offer.

“Do this one,” Natasha said, and the three of them stopped in front of a water gun challenge. The prize was a smaller water gun. Most game booths involved some kind of weaponry, but at a glance towards the last one in line, Steve saw what was simply a small pool in which rubber ducks of different colors bobbed around.

Bucky fixed Steve with a confident look, as if to say, _watch this_ , and was handed a water gun. The first thing he did though, was spray Steve with it. Maybe because Steve had looked too skeptical in response, or maybe because he didn’t dare do it to Natasha. In any case, that happened to decrease his chances of winning by quite a large margin.

He tried knocking over bottles next, with a foam ball, and failed just as miserably.

“Shit, man, I think all of these are rigged,” Bucky said under his breath to Natasha and Steve.

“Barnes, these are for children. You just suck,” Natasha said.

Steve was cracking up, and kept bringing his hand up to cover his mouth.

“Try the duck pond, buddy,” Steve suggested.

“I fucking will,” Bucky said and stalked over to it.

“Isn’t he hot when he gets all determined like that?” Natasha said to Steve, who didn’t catch if she was kidding, and at whose expense.

“Uh, what,” Steve replied, momentarily dumbfounded by her enigmatic tone of voice, which sounded to him to be layered in sarcasm and goading and a play at sincerity, all at once.

“Yes!” came Bucky’s booming yell. The person manning the booth reluctantly allowed Bucky to choose a prize from a bucket. At this moment Becca, Gabe, and Marco came jogging their way. Gabe was eating a corn dog mid-run, and Becca’s face had been hastily painted like a butterfly. Marco’s face had also been decorated, Steve realised in short succession, with a few red, white, and blue stars. They only stopped for half a breath to pull on Steve, and Natasha’s arms.

“Fireworks! Vamos, vamos!” Becca said, prompting them to leap into a run.

As they followed along, Bucky came up from behind them, pressing a small metal-and-plastic object into Steve’s hand, before dashing ahead of him. Steve watched as he tried to catch up to Gabe and Marco, competing in who would come first. They weaved around groups of people heading the same direction, almost disappearing in the darkness. Steve had bad night vision, but he kept up by keeping track of the big silhouette of Becca’s hair. Loud pops were heard, as they reached a small hill and almost had to make a full stop, to avoid crashing into the crowd. The surroundings were lit up by a reddish light for a few seconds. The six of them pressed on, squeezing between onlookers, up the hill and farther along the ridge, to where Gabe’s friends were standing.

Becca and Marco greeted them and started up a conversation that Steve couldn’t hear for the popping and sizzling noise of the fireworks. He came to stand next to Bucky, who made room for him by pressing up behind Natasha. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and the two of them arched back a little to watch the lights in silence, perfectly attuned to one another. The sky turned green and yellow. Pink, purple, blue. A big glitter of white rained down, so close it looked like it would touch the ground and set fire to the dry grass.

From here you could smell the burning and the slightly sulfuric smoke. Steve played with the wheels on the little toy in his hands. It was a red race car. He looked over at Bucky again, just as Bucky’s head was turned towards him. A slow, easy smile formed on Bucky’s face. Steve’s mouth tugged into a grin, all by itself. An automatic response. It couldn’t be helped.

 

_____________________

 

Going to college and turning 20, were two things that ostensibly should make a person feel more grown up. For Steve, it had the reverse effect. He had felt too old all his life. Out of step with his peers. Now, his body having caught up to his sensibilities, he felt the way he believed he should have felt for all his childhood but never did. Maybe it was because of the company he kept. Maybe it was being that much closer to his dream of going pro. For whatever reason, Steve was closer to joy than he could ever remember being. He did have these vague, blurred, memories of pure childish glee and wonder from when he was very little. But most of his life was characterised by the exhaustion that came from knowing too much and not enough.

Knowing loss, deterioration. Knowing what it was like to be despised. Feeling old because of this knowledge, and because of a frail body. Not knowing things could change so drastically, given time.

Steve had never felt less restricted. Not in the least, when it came to connecting with other people. Just being able to reach out a hand and touch someone—there was something revolutionary in as simple an action as that. Before then, he had always kept his body in check. Arms down, straight lines. Never taking up too much space, unless the moment required some sort of intimidation. Never touching anyone who hadn’t prompted him to, never embracing anyone who hadn’t opened their arms already.

That way you can’t be rejected. Or not as rejected.

Then Bucky came along. It would sound stupid, said out loud. But the way that Bucky reached out and touched Steve—how naturally it occurred, like Steve was someone Bucky had cared for his whole life—that was the beginning of something new in Steve’s life. Something new in _him_. Everything felt easier after meeting Bucky. Things that had been like treasures in a display case, off-limits, were suddenly within grasping distance.

Like the safety of having someone to rely upon.

Like joy. Pure joy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for more homophobia and slurs. There’s also some talk about the death of a parent, and Parkinson’s disease.
> 
> Thank you Danny for being my #1 French translator!

# PART TWO

 

The year Steve turned ten was the same year his dad had died. 

It was four months after the fact, and by this time he didn’t cry as much. As soon as Steve felt like crying, he put his shoes on and grabbed the soccer ball that was always stashed in the hallway, usually on the shoe rack under the coats, and he went outside to practice until he lost track of time. His mom would check on him, when he returned inside. Check for tear tracks maybe, or a frown. Steve would meet her eyes and wear an expression as though he didn’t know what she was looking for.

For his tenth birthday, his mom put effort into making it something special. Something new. They had just moved to a different apartment, closer to Steve’s school, but farther from the park where he would go to practice soccer or draw by himself.

Sarah Rogers invited twenty kids or so—probably blowing up their budget substantially, Steve knew—to celebrate at Chuck E. Cheese. Steve didn’t tell his mom that he thought the big mouse was like something out of an anxiety dream. He liked pizza, just as anyone, so it was fine.

Five people came to Steve’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese: Bernie, Arnie, Riley, and two girls both named Madison. Bernie left before the cake was served, because she was fully booked all day. The girls named Madison left soon after. Even so it turned out okay, in Steve’s eyes. He had fun playing around with Arnie and Riley, who didn’t have much compunction about maintaining a cool image. Who liked dorky things, and didn’t mind anyone’s special interest. 

Sarah sat at the table with them, and both Bernie and Riley made polite, adult conversation with her. She seemed to appreciate the small turnout, even as it meant her carefully made plans were for naught. Steve kept it off his mind. Thinking about it stirred something angry, and guilty, in him. Things best left for some other occasion. 

For his fifteenth birthday, Steve got two tickets to a Brooklyn Blue Spades game. Naturally, he believed it was for himself and his mom—Sarah liked soccer, even though she didn’t keep up with any of the leagues. But no, the tickets were for himself and _a friend_. Steve wanted to lash out, and say to his mom: why won’t you go with me? But he didn’t want her to think he was a loser.

So there he was. Summer break, trying to scrounge up any possible candidate to bring along. None of Steve’s classmates were as interested in soccer as he was, and he didn’t feel blasé enough to ask anyone of them to do something that would essentially be a favor to him. It couldn’t be someone from his team either, because Steve couldn’t face being rejected by any of them. 

He felt like a charity case.

The lot landed on Riley. Riley, who was nice to everyone, and who never seemed to tire of social interaction. The indiscriminate niceness made asking him less of a blow to Steve’s pride. Riley had a bit of trouble when it came to sitting still, and Steve worried he would be bored before halftime—but Riley was as happy as ever, from start to finish.

He kept up a constant chatter however, which Steve had trouble engaging in because the game took up most of his faculties. The star of the Blue Spades at that time, was Harper Sheffield, a central defender who had dashed the reputation of many a forward. This meant that the Blue Spades primary strength was a solid defense, and few, if any, goals were prognosticated. But by the 42nd minute, the Blue Spades scored from a corner kick, and Steve was so thrilled and surprised he flew out of his seat and nearly fell over. He might have accidentally hit the person in front of him if it weren’t for Riley, equally caught up in the moment, who swept Steve into a hug.

“Your team!” Riley yelled, “they did a goal!”

And Steve laughed and hugged him back. The two of them, the whole section they were in, jumped up and down so hard the stands shook. The sound of the Blue Spades fans was deafening, and Steve was so damn happy to be sharing this moment with someone.

It ended in a tie, but to Steve it felt like victory. 

Afterwards, Riley bought him a Coke and a slice of pizza, and they walked the boardwalk together. It would have been easier to enjoy the food l3if they had sat down, but Steve figured Riley needed to move around for a bit. They traipsed all the way down to where the strip of beach ended in the fenced off Sea Gate. It was late afternoon, and visitors had started to make the trek home for dinner. With the breeze coming off the ocean it was nice to sit in the sun, so Steve planted himself on a bench and watched the gulls flap around in search of tasty leftovers.

Holding onto the railing, Riley lifted his feet off the ground and balanced himself on his arms. Then he landed again, and swung this way and that. His eyes trailed the line of blue-and-white huts on the other side of the fence, in what was presumably the gated community’s slot of beach.

Riley chuckled to himself.

“What?” Steve said.

“I just remembered something that happened in one of those tents.”

“Yeah, what’s that.”

Riley shook his head and leaned back, stretching his arms as far as they would go. “I got a handjob in there once.”

“Oh,” Steve said, and surprised even himself with asking, “from who?”

Riley cast a furtive glance Steve’s way, twirling around at the railing. “Um,” he started, snickering a little again, like he wasn’t going to reveal it. Then, very casually, “You know Nathan Rossi in eleventh grade?” And he laughed loudly this time.

“Oh…” Steve said again, but he was too confused to laugh along in solidarity.

“Ugh,” Riley said, stepping towards the bench to push Steve’s shoulder. “It‘s not like that. You’ve never helped a guy out?” He sat down next to Steve on the bench, as if they were now about to have an interview about Steve’s (nonexistent) sex life, and why he was such a prude.

Steve shook his head with a bewildered frown that he fought to smooth out. “No, I… haven’t done that.” 

He didn’t want to sound judgemental, but the fact that Riley wore socks in his sandals this day—the goofy way he was always dancing around from excess energy—it put an unreal twist to the whole topic. As though Riley was too little to be doing that sort of thing. But Riley was both taller, broader, and older than Steve, so in fairness, it was more plausible coming from Riley’s mouth than from Steve’s.

Maybe that was the weird part. Steve wasn’t equipped with the right vocabulary to talk about sex with anyone of his peers. At 15 years old, Steve had only overheard those kinds of conversations. At most, nodded and laughed to pretend he was in the know—never actively added to them.

“You know…” Riley said, and leaned back. 

Steve sat frozen and looked ahead at the beige image that the sand made down below the boardwalk.

“It’s not that weird to like, practice with your friends and stuff,” Riley explained. “It’s better than being a total newbie when you’re with a chick, anyway.” This was said in a but-that’s-just-my-opinion-sort of way, in which Riley often concluded his philosophising.

“Yeah, I guess,” Steve agreed, but he couldn’t bear to look back at Riley, who tapped his can of Cherry Dr Pepper against the backrest of the bench. Riley was probably correct, and it was probably common practice among people his age to experiment like that. Steve tried to imagine someone he hung out with suggesting they fool around. It was inconceivable. 

“Do you wanna have some of my soda?” Riley asked.

“No, thanks,” Steve said, and soon after that, they started back home.

 

_____________________

 

Steve got to ride back from the fairground with Bucky in the pickup. The radio was turned off, and the late hour was felt in the silence. Before leaving, they had stood around to watch the band play for a bit, and Becca drew Marco to her in a slow dance. Their face paint got all smeared from cozying up. 

Up to that point Steve hadn’t minded that Natasha was with them, but now Gabe and his friends were off doing whatever, and Bucky was being pulled into the pavilion by her; to dance alongside the other couples. All Steve could do was lean against a post and watch, feeling a tad creepy and misplaced. The band was doing covers of popular rock songs. It wasn’t bad at all. They played _Get It While You Can_ , as Steve waited for someone, anyone, to tire and want to head home. Natasha turned her head where it rested against Bucky’s chest, and caught Steve’s eye. 

She looked smug. 

Steve realised he was glaring.

In the car, when they were nearing the house, Steve made himself ask. But it turned out he didn’t have the words for what he wanted to know.

“Are you and Natasha, like… still…?”

Bucky’s gaze strayed from the road to land on Steve for a moment. 

“We’re just friends,” he said. But then, in what sounded like some kind of contradiction, or an admission, “I love her a lot.”

“You love her,” Steve repeated.

“Yeah, like a friend,” Bucky said, picking up on Steve’s denseness. “Or a sister.”

“Oh, okay.” Steve was perfectly still for three seconds. Then he sighed, and melted into the car seat. 

When they arrived home and got out of the car, Bucky stepped in front of him and put his hand on Steve’s chest.

“Stay here for a sec,” he said, and started walking toward the door. As he did, he took off his hoodie and threw it at Steve.

Steve sat down on the steps like Alice had when they left. The night had turned chilly and he was only in a t-shirt, so he drew the hoodie around his neck like a scarf, and pressed the cuffs against his mouth. He leaned on his forearms and looked across the road at the neighboring house. The whiteness of it shone even in the midnight gloom. From what could be distinguished, the front garden looked pristine. Not a child’s toy or kick scooter in sight, no trash waiting to be taken to the dump. It reminded Steve of an Edward Hopper painting, but he didn’t know exactly which one.

Music and voices could be heard from a block party down the street. The house in front of him looked empty, though the lights were on downstairs, and Steve wondered if the whole neighborhood were living it up at the same location. He wondered if neighbors here were like extended family. He debated whether he wanted to live like this, should he ever have the means. There were many perks, more than he could have guessed—but for all its hospitality, this clarified, antiseptic image of the heartland still gave him an inkling feeling that he would eventually choke on the faint aftertaste of the 50s.

He heard Bucky open the front door behind him, but he remained seated. He felt the spring in the planks beneath him, as Bucky stepped out and put both hands on Steve’s head.

“Come on,” Bucky said and pulled at Steve’s hair.

Steve grimaced and bent backwards to catch Bucky’s eye. Instead of apologising, Bucky partly smoothed, partly tapped his hands over Steve’s face, like it would remove the frown.

Steve was led inside, into the kitchen, were only the stove lamp was lit. Presently Bucky turned that one off as well, and fussed with a lighter, his back turned to Steve. When he spun around Steve needed a second to parse what he was seeing. Bucky was holding a small, frosted cake, with five candles in the middle of it.

“Oh,” Steve breathed out a startled laugh. “Shit.”

“It’s still your birthday for another-” he cast a glance at the oven clock, “-two minutes.”

Steve put his hands on his face and had to squirm around for a bit where he was standing, in appreciation, and slight embarrassment. But not like he wanted to hide—only because he was somewhat overwhelmed.

“Blow out your candles, bro,” Bucky ordered.

Steve looked between the little flames and Bucky’s softly lit face. “You’re crazy,” he decided, and stepped in close to blow them out.

Bucky let out a low _woo_ , and placed the cake in Steve’s hands. Then he went for something else on the counter, and replaced the cake with a lumpy, newspaper-wrapped package.

“It’s the sport section,” Bucky said, tapping the package with a finger.

Steve tore the paper off with a giddiness he hadn’t felt since he was eight, and the items inside almost slipped out of his grasp. They were stacked in a row; three large tubes of oil paint. Same brand as the ones in Steve’s studio at school. Expensive. But more remarkably, it was the colors he was always running low on. Blue and yellow.

“I got two yellow ones, because I didn’t know which shade you preferred. And you’re always buying those. But I remember you saying every painter needs cobalt blue so... Is it the right sort?”

“Yeah…” Steve said faintly, staring at the paint tubes in his hands as though he were holding a nest of baby birds.

“It’s like you have a thing for the Swedish flag or something.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah…”

Steve put the things on the kitchen island before the awkwardness won out, and snaked his arms around Bucky’s waist in a hug.

“You’re so sweet,” he said, and lifted Bucky, who let out a surprised little yelp.

Steve’s face pressed against Bucky’s shoulder—he had a strong urge to lick it or bite it, to tease him. But it would have undercut the genuineness in his thanks. Bucky pushed at him to get free, but it only encouraged Steve to drag it out a few seconds more. 

Bucky was laughing when Steve let go, but it didn’t trigger echoing laughter like it usually did, it just made Steve’s smile even more fond.

 

_____________________

 

The internal workings of the Howlies were not free loving and brotherly. There existed groups within the group, and every player had a private ranking of these subgroups: the one he was a part of himself, often having the highest ranking. This informed the order in which players would seek out each other’s company. Was the main group not available, the player would seek out the second best group, and try his luck with them. This way, there was some circulation happening in an otherwise closed system.

Naturally, there were rankings to be made within the subgroup as well. Number one on Steve’s chart went without saying—number two probably had to be Gabe, although his placement fluctuated a bit.

At the very bottom of Steve’s list, a placement that existed purely out of compulsion, you would find Steve’s roommate and fellow forward, William Näslund. 

Maybe it was to do with William talking in his sleep. Maybe it was a cultural clash. Maybe it was how William sometimes would tell longwinded stories about people in his life who had died in remarkable ways. Sometimes William would ignore Steve for long stretches of time without Steve understanding what he had done wrong. Sometimes William would eat a satanic dish called fish balls in their dorm room, like he was trying to tell Steve he needed to be alone, and only willing to communicate it by smell.

It was enough that Steve had to see his dumb, overrated Scandinavian face at practice and matches, five or six times a week. Having to share a living space with him was oftentimes what drove Steve over the edge.

William was a rich boy. This wasn’t apparent because he flaunted it—he didn’t brag about his parents having a lake house, or whatever the fuck kind of real estate rich Swedes bought to spend five days a year in. It was apparent because William didn’t talk about money. Not as it related to him. He didn’t complain about food being expensive, or bemoan his mounting student loan debt. He was a citizen of a country where education was free for all and sundry, and he chose to come to America—not because he was enamored with the American soccer league. Rather, for the fuck of it.

Maybe Steve was a petty, prejudiced xenophobe. But that fact made every annoying thing William did worse, by a factor of ten.

“My parents pay for my tuition too,” Bucky countered.

“You have two scholarships.”

“Yeah, but still. They’re not exactly poor.”

As a rarely upheld Friday treat, the top ranking subgroup (in Steve’s book anyway) was having a beer at a bar near campus. Some of the guys were being schooled in billiards, and the rest were chatting at the bar. Steve took the opportunity of being momentarily alone with Bucky, to bitch about the conversations he had had to withstand that week. 

At this time Steve had roomed with William for nearly one semester. It was April, 2007. The weather was shitty and so was everyone’s mood. Too long without having played any actual matches, and everyone on the team went stir crazy from the relatively slow-paced trudge onwards. Nowhere to really prove themselves or direct that itching competitiveness. William showed his frustration by compulsively playing devil’s advocate, shoe-horning himself into conversations to turn them into debates that no one had asked for, or needed.

“Fine. So all rich people aren’t evil, I know, I know,” Steve continued. “But how can someone from one of the most successful socialist countries in the world argue... _tax breaks_ _for millionaires_? Trickle down economics? Fuck off. I can’t believe Sharon lets him go on and on like that. She’s studying political science for Christ’s sake.” With this statement Steve threw himself back in his chair. And under his breath he said, “I can’t believe she likes him.”

“You can’t believe Sharon likes him...?” Bucky repeated, squinting at Steve.

“I can’t believe any woman likes him. Can you?”

“I mean… he’s a handsome, somewhat successful, apparently _rich_ , foreigner. That is every American’s favourite kind of foreigner.”

“You think he’s handsome?!”

“Can we stop talking about William fucking Näslund for five minutes?” Bucky responded.

Steve leaned forward again, pushing against the table. “Do you think I’m a xenophobe?”

“No, sweetheart…” Bucky said in a dulcet tone. He leaned closer to Steve. “I think you’re a Swedeophobe.”

Bucky gave him a significant look, and held out for three seconds, before snickering at his own pun. Steve was put off-track by Bucky calling him sweetheart, as it was usually a sarcastic endearment reserved for Gabe, and vice-versa. He grabbed the empty beer bottle in front of him and started ripping off its label. The condensation had run off it already and the paper was too dry to come clean off. He ended up putting small strips of it in a pile on the table. 

Bucky glared at the mess.

Over at the bar, Steve saw Gabe try his charm on someone vaguely familiar—Steve guessed she was a student-athlete as well. It looked to be going well. 

Gabe was a confirmed romantic. He was a romantic in the sense that he had a lot of romance, and he channeled it into a quest of sleeping with as many women as possible. This could arguably be said to be everyone’s quest, but no one had the finesse Gabe did. However, Steve had recently been let in on a secret by Bucky. Gabe was in actuality, super into a friend he was fuckbuddies with, which of course put a new spin on the whole situation.

“Like, _super_ into...” Bucky had revealed, adding, maybe because he thought Steve couldn’t read between the lines, “...like. In love.”

Now Gabe was leading the vaguely familiar someone over to the table where Steve and Bucky were parked, like announcements were about to be made.

“You guys met Luciane?” Gabe said.

“Hi,” Luciane said, and gave a little wave.

“I think we met last year,” Bucky told her, tilting his head. “You helped me with the printers in the library.” 

“Oh my god, yeah! How are you?” Luciane said, apparently delighted by the memory.

If Gabe was annoyed at this development he didn’t show it, simply waiting as the two got reacquianted. Getting help with printers sounded suspiciously like a flirting tactic to Steve—at least where engineering students were involved. He raised an eyebrow at Bucky, who caught his look but elected to ignore him.

Luciane excused herself to go talk to her friend back at the bar, and Gabe took a seat at the table. His demeanor shifted from laid back to hell-bent in one nanosecond. 

“So, anyway…” Gabe said, forearms on the table, looking between Steve and Bucky. “Luciane had this great idea that we go swimming at the natatorium.”

”The what now?”

“Is that allowed?” Bucky asked.

“She’s got a friend in the swimming program,” Gabe said, nodding towards the bar. “They want us to ask Näslund to come.”

“Aw, come on,” Steve said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I donno, dude,” Bucky began. “It’s late, and we’ve got shit to do tomorrow.”

“Can you guys stop being such babies for once in your lives?” Gabe pleaded in a quiet voice. He glared at Bucky. “I thought I was your bro. I thought we were fam.”

“You are my bro. You’re my good, good boy,” Bucky told Gabe very seriously. “You’re my prince, and you know that.”

“So fucking come with,” Gabe said.

Bucky locked eyes with Steve to have a silent deliberation. Steve shrugged minutely and made a face that conveyed, _I’ll go if you go._

“Fine,” Bucky relented, and Gabe sat back in the chair looking pleased. “Go tell the others.”

“We can’t bring the others, this is a small affair.”

“What? Why?” Steve complained, uncomfortable at the thought of ditching the rest of the gang to get into some shenanigans with people he didn’t even want to hang out with.

“Fine,” Bucky said again. He rose from the chair and went over to Dernier and Monty who were still playing billiards. Steve thought he had given in much too easily. He stayed behind, but when Gabe went to talk to Luciane, he got up and followed Bucky.

“Why can’t we come? What is this elitism?” Monty was saying to Bucky. When he saw Steve, he continued, “Cap, what’s this now—you going to an exclusive pool party and you’re leaving your best fellas behind? We were gonna do the pub quiz!” 

“I don’t think you’ll be missing much,” Steve said. A trivia night sounded like a nicer time to Steve.

“It’s because the girls want us to bring Näslund, we’re just as disposable,” Bucky explained. “This is Jones’ thing.”

“Whatever,” Monty said.

“Et vous deux, vous allez nulle part sans l'autre…” Dernier said, in what was either a question or a statement. The fact that it was in French and not English got the message across—he wasn’t pleased, either.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Bucky said. “Go easy tonight, now that mom and dad aren’t here to babysit.”

“Putes,” Dernier said, and waved at them to fuck off.

 

_____________________

 

Steve was tasked with texting William, and did so hoping there would be no answer. But despite the dryness of the message, William was enthused, and met up with them en route to the Complex. The four of them—Steve, Bucky, Gabe, and William—found their way to a side entrance as instructed. Steve spotted Luciane and her friend Julia in the gloom, along with another woman in a knit cap.

“Er… looks like the numbers aren’t in our favor,” William said, counting the three women.

“This isn’t a school formal,” Steve told him. “We don’t have to pair off.”

“Sorry, I forgot you were homos,” William said. “This shouldn’t be a problem then.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Gabe and Bucky ignored him.

“Hey! Look who I found!” Luciane said by way of greeting, gesturing to the unknown third party.

She turned slightly towards them, and the mystery was revealed. Bucky, who had been holding onto Steve’s jacket sleeve as they walked, let go of him and put a bit of air between them. Steve turned his head to silently question Gabe about this, and Gabe responded with a lopsided smile, like he had done Steve a great favor.

“Hey Steve,” Sharon said as the group stopped in front of them.

“Hey Sharon,” Steve said.

Without any further preamble, the lot of them entered the facility. Led by Julia, very glad to escape the cold and the specks of rain, they went straight for the swimming hall, bypassing the locker rooms and showers. Steve had to awkwardly grab onto Bucky in the darkness so as not to trip or walk into something.

“Theo’s already here,” Julia said, but no one seemed to know or care who that was.

In the swimming hall there were at least pool lights illuminating the space. Julia threw her outerwear onto the bleachers and started to undress. Luciane and Sharon followed suit.

“Hope you’re wearing underwear,” Gabe said under his breath.

Thankfully, Steve was wearing a pair that weren’t completely mortifying to be seen in. He was still slow to commit. The smell of chlorine put him off, faintly reminiscent as it was, of hospital corridors. His entire body was anticipating the chill temperature and protested against it.

“Come on,” Bucky said and jostled him with his shoulder. 

Five seconds later he was in his skivvies, heading straight for the water. Steve sighed, then finally removed his shirt and pants. He lowered himself slowly into the pool, whereas Bucky and Gabe had jumped in like this was a _Wham!_ music video. On the other side of the pool, some guy was making out with a woman. Steve figured it was the aforementioned Theo, and as soon as he became aware of the pair, he was happy to pretend they weren’t there.

Then Gabe blurted out, “Kara?!” and no one was afforded the luxury of ignoring them anymore.

“Oh,” Kara said, looking over Theo’s shoulder. “Hey, Gabe.”

 

_____________________

 

The only reason Gabe’s placement on Steve’s bro chart fluctuated, was because he had a leg up on him when it came to Bucky. Gabe was a wholesome, intelligent, altogether lovely person, who Steve should have felt honored to count as a friend at all. And he did feel honored. But Gabe was also competition, in a sense. It was the competition for Bucky’s time and attention. Gabe had known Bucky since high school. He knew things about Bucky that Steve would never know. Just the sheer amount of time spent together had to mean, in Steve’s understanding of things, that their bond went deeper. 

But Gabe probably didn’t even know he was Steve’s competition. He would probably have a good laugh about it if he did.

Steve knew that viewing people as competition was for the most part detrimental. On the team, Steve competed with Gabe and the rest in being scouted, being drafted, getting to play at all. But competitor-teammate didn’t make for a great duality. Steve took care not to let the state of things inform the way he viewed Gabe, just as he took care not to think of his teammates as competition. The same went for anyone who occupied a lot of Bucky’s time.

But maybe it did, sometimes, in spite of his self-awareness. He was jealous, wasn’t he? That was what it boiled down to. And jealousy never left one untainted.

“You know each other?” Luciane asked Gabe, maintaining good cheer; either because she couldn’t detect the affront in Gabe’s tone, or because she was the kind of person to be unperturbed by stale atmospheres.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Gabe replied and sank down so he was fully submerged for a handful of seconds.

William took time out of flirting with Julia to comment loudly, “Wait, didn’t you two-” at which point Bucky swam over and helpfully pushed his head under the surface.

This led to all of them—barring Kara and Theo—chasing each other around. Yelling and shushing in succession. After messing about and trying to drown each other for a considerable amount of time, they settled down enough for Steve to swim in place and really appreciate how cold the water was. He had ended up on the far side of the pool, at some distance away from the rest. He hoped he wouldn’t be challenged to race anyone, as he was sure to be the worst swimmer out of the lot. 

Bucky glided towards him gracefully, betraying skills in this activity just as in ninety million others. He stopped three feet away from Steve and spit water at him like a cherub in a fountain.

“Gross. Can you imagine how much pee is in this pool?” Steve said and splashed him in lame retaliation.

“Yeah, I’m peeing right now,” Bucky said and made an _ah_ -face. He laughed and swam backwards as Steve splashed him more purposefully.

They circled each other warily, hostile expressions plastered on their faces, but secretly too tired to play around anymore.

“D’you know how insane your eyes look in this light?” Steve asked, purely rhetorically. He was the only one in the group, as far as he could tell, who sounded strained and out of breath from trying to keep himself afloat. “They’re like silver.”

He stared transfixed for a moment longer, like he was trying to understand the phenomenon, before Bucky broke away and dove under the water. Steve watched his shadowy figure approach. A smooth form cutting through the topaz blue, lit from below. He had to exert a mental effort to stay put and not recoil like the thrill in his stomach—shooting out into his legs—compelled him to. Bucky came up right in front of him. He pushed his hair out of his face and looked like he was going to say something, when Sharon swam past them and cut him off.

“Are you drunk?” she asked Steve.

Steve glared at her, and she raised her eyebrows at him, somehow belligerent in that minute expression.

By this time everyone was just about ready to get out of the water. Kara and Theo were already sitting on the bleachers, drying off. Gabe was steadfastly ignoring their presence. But even Steve could tell his game was off. He took a second too long to laugh at the things Luciane was telling him, and he seemed to be actively resisting the urge to curl in on himself. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Kara was the person Gabe was supposedly _super into_. But Bucky still made a small jerk with his head towards them, as if it needed to be pointed out to Steve. To this, Steve didn’t have anything to offer but a shrug. They exited the pool one by one, and gathered by their clothes to stand around and drip dry like a bunch of shivering dogs. Only half of them had brought towels; Steve, Bucky, and Gabe were not among them.

“Can I borrow your towel?” Steve asked William.

“Ew, no,” William replied.

“Bitch...” Steve whispered.

Sharon came to the rescue. “You can have mine,” she said, and Steve, Bucky, and Gabe took turns with it, mildly improving their situation.

Luciane sat down on the step below Kara and Theo. Sharon went to sit on the opposite end, so they formed a little semicircle. William and Julia followed their example and completed the circuit. That left the more reluctant trio standing at the sidelines. Steve decided to put some clothes on.

 _Now what?_ Steve thought, and was answered by Theo rifling through a bag to procure some rolling paper and a little baggie of weed. _Huh_. It wasn’t what Steve was expecting from a midnight swim. No one appeared to be surprised at this development. And no one broached any concerns about fire alarms. Steve figured he would just ride this out in silence.

“You want some?” Theo said, holding out the lit joint toward Gabe.

“I don’t smoke,” Gabe said, and Theo smirked and passed it to Kara.

Steve declined as well when it came to him, but Bucky took it and tipped his head this way and that in contemplation, before taking a hit.

“What,” he said to Steve. “It’s Friday.”

Steve held his hands up in surrender to that argument.

“I’ve got some other stuff if anyone’s interested,” Theo offered.

“Yeah!” William said.

“No,” Steve said, shaking his head at William, effectively extinguishing his zeal. No one needed to see that dumbass on coke. 

“Wow,” Theo snickered, “you guys sure are stiff.” He looked at Steve, who had barely registered the jab, and then at Gabe, who was visibly grossed out. “You all in the same program? What is it you guys do?”

“Soccer,” Bucky replied.

“Right, the fag version of football,” Theo said, laughing at his own joke.

“Funny,” Bucky said. “Super original.”

“Oh, relax,” Theo went on. “I was just joking.”

“What was it you do?” Sharon asked. “You swim back and forth in a pool of other people’s urine?”

“Hey,” Theo said, putting a hand up. “So did you five minutes ago if I’m not mistaken.”

“American football is the fag version of football,” William said. “You see it when those guys are standing around yelling _hut, hut_? They look pretty ready to take it from behind. Seriously.”

“That says more about where your imagination takes you when you see guys in tight pants, than it does American football,” Bucky said.

“True,” Sharon said, and Luciane started giggling profusely.

“Whose side are you on, dude? Show some pride,” William complained.

At the word _pride_ , Sharon and Bucky joined in Luciane’s giggling.

“So, Julia,” Kara spoke up, “how was Europe?” 

Julia started talking about how amazing her spring break trip to France had been, recounting all the sights and the restaurants and whether or not they lived up to expectation.

“Oh,” Kara said dreamily, “I’d love to go to Paris again.” She took a drag from the joint and closed her eyes.

“I’m taking you to Cape Cod in like two months, babe,” Theo said, “that’s honestly better than Paris. I should know, I’ve been to most of Europe.”

Kara snorted, and patted his leg.

“Gonna hang out with my family... go shopping… sex on the beach…” Theo counted off.

“Oh my god, shut up,” Kara said, laughing quietly. She was seemingly the only one charmed.

“Yeah, please do,” Gabe muttered.

Kara tilted her head at him—Steve was unsure if she was disapproving or just questioning. Theo answered by chuckling in a way that was obviously faked. 

“What do you guys think is better—Europe or Cape Cod?” Theo asked the group at large, but he was mostly looking at Steve, Bucky, and Gabe.

“Åland,” William answered.

“Gabriel, what do you say?” Theo said.

“Don’t talk to me, dude,” Gabe said.

“What’s the matter? I’m only trying to have a conversation!” Theo proclaimed. “You people are rude.”

Gabe had been looking down on a spot in front of him, working his jaw. But now he looked up at Kara, who was silently broadcasting to Gabe to keep his cool. Everyone not involved in this little scene had started to get dressed, sensing things were about to pop off. 

“Are you serious with this, fucking, Tommy Hilfiger mannequin come to life?”

“I can’t tell if that’s an insult,” Theo said.

“You wouldn’t,” Bucky commented.

“Are _you_ serious right now?” Kara said.

“Gabe, come on,” Steve tried. “Save it for another time.” He patted Gabe’s back. Gabe shook him off.

Julia and Luciane rose to go huddle in the periphery, toward the hall entrance. William scooted down the bench in their direction. 

“You’re going on vacation with Theodore XIV over here, and spending one weekend in Macon with me is too much of a commitment?”

“You want to talk about this right now, Gabriel!?” Kara asked.

“Yeah, man, are you serious right now?” Theo said.

“ _Shut up, Theodore!_ ” Gabe and Kara said.

As this was happening, Steve tried to check in with Sharon. She was giving off major _yikes_ vibes, and who could blame her. She was standing next to Bucky, in full gear, balancing from one foot to the other. Ready to skidaddle. Steve didn’t know which one of these people she was friends with—or if he was her closest connection—but she might as well capitalise on the ties being loose.

“I think I’m just gonna-” she said to Steve in a low voice, gesturing to the exit.

Steve nodded at her, and she slunk out of the swimming hall without further goodbye. Julia and Luciane looked after her with envy.

“You act all couple-y with me when no one’s looking, but when push comes to shove you just set me aside-”

“Oh, do I, Gabriel? When push comes to shove? You’re the one who said ‘no strings attached’.” She pointed an accusatory finger Gabe’s way, and continued in a cartoonish voice, “’Um, Kara, just so we’re clear, this is like a friends-with-benefits thing?’ ‘No strings attached, right Kara?’”

Theo looked a little shocked at this point. Like all the humor had left his white, clammy body. It appeared to hit him all at once how superfluous he was to this conversation, and that put him in a bitter enough mood to collect his things and walk out like Sharon. On the way past Steve, he made sure to bump his shoulder hard. A small, and somewhat sad attempt at regaining dignity.

“Let’s wait outside…” Bucky said, once Theo had gone.

Steve tugged at William’s shirt, and William tore himself away with only minor difficulty. The three of them walked past Julia and Luciane, who dutifully waited by the wall. Steve gave a little wave and they both grimaced and waved back. 

In the dark corridor that led them back to the sidedoor they had come in through, Steve followed behind William and grabbed ahold of his arm.

“Hey Näslund,” Steve said. “If I ever hear you say the word ‘fag’ again, I’m going to call your mother and make my case as for why she should disown you—you got that?”

“Fine, sorry,” William muttered. “I didn’t think you’d be offended.”

Steve gave Williams back a couple of hard pats. “Good.”

 

_____________________

 

Then it was back to being only the two of them, lingering near the door to wait for Gabe to finish arguing. William had showed no remorse in leaving them to it. He was gone with a garbled goodbye and the approximation of a wave.

It was excruciatingly cold to stand outside in the 30-degree weather with damp clothes and wet hair. The hour was probably close to midnight. Steve was tired. He wished they had stayed at Gabe’s dorm with the others, instead of going out at all. They could have sat in one of the couches in the common area and watched movies all night. Steve could have been falling asleep against Bucky’s shoulder right about now.

As though intuiting that Steve needed closeness—or just making the logical leap that he was freezing his ass off, Bucky grabbed Steve’s hands and hid them under his scarf, right against his neck. Then he pressed his chin down on top them and Steve was pinned all around. The reason Steve rarely wore proper outdoor clothing was because he hated the way that the static electricity every single hat on earth generated made his hair stand on end. This was a stupid reason, and he knew it. Gloves—those he left behind because he was paranoid he would lose one and render the widowed glove useless. That was a valid concern, because the universe always made sure it happened, sooner or later.

Bucky was always looking out for Steve’s hands. He said it was important to care for the artist tools. Steve thought he was cheesy, but it was the kind of cheesy that made Steve’s stomach flip.

“Don’t get mad at me, but-” Steve said, thinking Bucky was always more likely to defend Gabe than not. “-that wasn’t cool. It’s not exactly Gabe’s business who Kara dates.”

“Nah, I know.”

“Why’s he so volatile all of a sudden?”

“He’s having a minor existential crisis,” Bucky explained. Then he changed his mind, maybe because he didn’t want to give Steve the wrong idea with hyperbole. “Or I don’t know…” he said. “I just know he’s unsure about a lot of shit right now. He’s unsure about his degree, about next season being the last chance to show what he’s got with this team. Everything.”

“Are you nervous about next season?”

“What? How did this become about me?” Bucky said, laughing a little.

Steve only kept looking at him, not willing to brush the question aside so easily.

“I’m not nervous,” Bucky stated, in a way that was completely false. Or so Steve read it. “And if soccer doesn’t work out, I’m gonna be a fun-gineer at Disney World.”

Now Steve had to smile too. “Really?” That did sound plausible, like a solid plan B. “So I’m gonna have to play for Orlando if you don’t make the draft?”

As he was saying this, still being held by Bucky’s hands beneath the scarf, the door to the Complex swung open. But it wasn’t Gabe who exited, nor was it Kara. It was Peggy Carter. She had another woman following closely behind her. Steve thought she might be one of the coaches for some other program. The two of them stopped in their tracks upon seeing Steve and Bucky in the dim light of the street lamps.

“Steven?” Peggy said.

“Coach Carter…?” Bucky said,

“Hi,” the woman beside her said.

“Hi,” Steve said.

Peggy took a few slow steps toward them and let the door close behind her and the other coach. She seemed to be scrutinising Steve, and he didn’t know if they were about to be interrogated or yelled at.

“Is Sharon here?” Peggy finally settled on asking.

“No, she’s…” Steve started, already revealing himself to be lying in those two syllables, even though Sharon technically was no longer present, “...at… the library.”

“Good...” Peggy said, imitating Steve’s slow speech. “She doesn’t have time for boys and their silly night excursions.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Sure.”

“Goodnight boys,” Peggy said, nodding to Steve and Bucky respectively, still standing around holding hands as it were.

“Goodnight Coach,” they chorused.

The other coach waved and smiled as they walked away, Peggy’s arm around her waist. Once they had been absorbed by the darkness, hopefully out of earshot, Steve and Bucky looked at each other and burst into smothered laughter. The laughter made them rock away from each other, but instead of letting go, Bucky tightened his grip on Steve, and Steve pressed closer to him. So close it would only take an inch or so to lean their foreheads together. The laughter died suddenly. Bucky’s eyes seemed to search Steve’s.

For a few seconds, Steve no longer registered the cold. It felt a bit like when you fall off a building, or out an airplane, in a dream. Only brought back to reality by noticing the lack of wind whizzing around you, or how you’re not accelerating. You never hit the ground in those dreams, it’s merely a long explication on breathlessness.

The door opened again and out came Gabe in a huff. Steve and Bucky both sprang apart, as though startled by the noise. Gabe didn’t look their way, simply walked with long, determined strides toward the footpath leading back to the dorms. Bucky hurried to catch up with him. Steve did too, but he kept himself half a step behind them.

“Hey, Gabe,” Bucky started, like he was about to give a speech on how everything would be okay, and that there were plenty of fish in the sea.

“You think I’m an asshole don’t you,” Gabe said to Steve.

It surprised Steve to be addressed. It took him a moment to answer.

“No, but like, you don’t know her side of it, because you didn’t ask her or let her explain.” He realised as he was saying this that he was putting his foot in it. In fairness to Gabe, Steve didn’t have all the information. _Although_ , that doesn’t make it okay to blow up at someone like that, Steve thought.

“You always gotta take the girl’s side! Damn, maybe use situational judgement once in a while?” Gabe said.

“I’m not taking her side!” Steve protested. “I’m just saying-”

“That yelling is a form of violence—yeah, I know, Steve,” Gabe filled in. “We’ve all done Women’s Studies 101.”

With this he picked up the pace even more, and increased the distance between them so that Steve couldn’t point out that that was not what he had been about to say at all. Only that everyone’s got their own shit to work out, or something to that effect, and that _people aren’t mind readers_. But Gabe didn’t want to hear it so there was no use.

Bucky spun on his heel to walk backwards in front of Steve.

“I hafta go deal with this,” Bucky said, ready to take off after Gabe’s power walking figure, as it disappeared into the night.

“Yeah, go,” Steve told him. “Good luck.”

Bucky smiled at him a little miserably, and then he was gone.

 

_____________________

 

Bucky’s aunt had Parkinson’s disease. She was much older than George, the oldest sister in a flock of nine children. She was living out her days in a hospice in Indianapolis. Bucky told Steve that she had liked Bucky a lot, but now she couldn’t recognise him anymore.

She had gathered energy one day and asked, “Who’s that boy?” when Bucky was there visiting with his dad. Bucky said her face had been blank, like a mask. He said that the disease can make your face freeze. There was no way to know what she was feeling. If she had been joking, or if Bucky was a stranger to her from that day on.

Now she couldn’t talk at all anymore.

“That’s… horrifying,” was all Steve could think to say.

As it was a vacation from both internships and summer jobs, the week Steve spent in Shelbyville was used to get some well needed rest. That meant Bucky restricted their exercise to one physical activity per day. It was the equivalent of half a workout every other day, in Steve’s estimation. For the most part, they were out running intervals along the river or on some dusty little dirt road.

One morning they cut through a field of wheat or what have you. Tall and pale stalks that shot up almost to Steve’s chest. They had run around a lake until it got to be too hot, at which point Bucky took the lead homeward. He walked in front of Steve, carefully parting a way, and didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. Even with the sun glaring down at them from a cloudless sky.

“When your dad died, did you ever- not wanna go see him?”

Steve took a few seconds to parse the meaning of the question.

“He died suddenly, same day he went to the hospital,” he said then.

“Oh, right… I...” Bucky said, stopping momentarily to look back at Steve. “I just assumed he was sick.”

“Nah,” Steve said, and they continued walking. He didn’t experience the same level of discomfort talking about his dad’s death as he usually did. Maybe his feeling on the subject had evolved somehow, in the past few months, without him noticing. Maybe it was that Bucky had already seen him at his most vulnerable. “It was a work accident. He had bleeding in his brain, fell over dead right in the waiting room.”

Bucky stopped again as Steve was telling him this, Steve could see tension in his shoulders. He wanted to reach his hand out and touch Bucky’s back. He imagined his hand smoothing down Bucky’s shirt. He imagined it pressed against his shoulder blade.

‘“Do you think I should go see her? My aunt?”

Steve took some time to consider his reply. The grass made whispering sounds, and the world seemed intensely quiet. He looked at the back of Bucky’s head, down his neck and to the spot between his shoulder blades where the shirt fabric loosened. There wasn’t really anything he could say that would suffice. That would make Bucky feel okay again, and have the tension leave his shoulders.

“I think,” Steve started, feeling unsure of himself but reasoning that any answer he could think of was better than none. “That you’re more likely to regret something you didn’t do, than something you did do. Especially when someone is about to die.”

“Yeah, I s’pose that makes sense.”

“It’ll be terrible, but… even terrible experiences are worth having. Sometimes.”

They left it at that.

 

_____________________

 

Gabe kept acting weird for the rest of the spring semester. He missed practices and flunked one of his English classes. No one knew what to do about this, so everyone mostly just gave him some space. Steve had been quick to apologise to him, because he figured he had been insensitive. Gabe had waved away the apology. He seemed embarrassed about the whole ordeal. He became reclusive, staying home to eat yoghurt instead of joining them at the bar or for trips downtown. This meant Bucky stayed behind a lot of the time as well, to keep Gabe company. Whether Gabe wanted it or not. 

Sometimes it hit Steve how impossible it was to truly know somebody. Or rather, the vastness of stories that made up someone. Stories Steve would never know—or if he did, not understand.

Steve didn’t understand how one person could be so ruined by another. How did that shit happen? Gabe was a normal, well-adjusted guy, who lived under all sorts of pressures. And this, being in love with someone, was what did him in. It was unreal to Steve, in a sense, even if he felt a great deal of sympathy. He didn’t have anything to offer Gabe but a persistent avoidance of the whole subject.

When May was almost over, Gabe was starting to look alive again. Everyone was frolicking in the nice weather, and practice became much less of a chore. There was a general shot of energy making the rounds. Gabe kept his focus for all of practice, and stood around to chit-chat with the rest of them, like normal, during the water breaks. This freed up a lot of Bucky’s attention to be drawn back to Steve.

He didn’t really have to do anything. Bucky just gravitated towards him. Nearing the end of their Thursday practice, Bucky came over and sat on Steve’s lap to try and gently force him into being sprinkled with water. As you do. They grappled in relative silence so as not to gain the attention of any of the coaches, but it was nonetheless very intense.

"Fuck you, Barnes," Steve gritted out, as Bucky failed to stifle his giggling and almost tipped them over. 

Morita appeared above them and helped out in the effort of cooling Steve off, emptying his water bottle overhead with indiscriminate aim. Steve had finally fallen backwards, pinned by both Bucky’s hands as he had abandoned his own bottle in favor of this new development.

“Let’s waterboard the bastard,” Bucky said, and Morita obeyed by pouring the last dregs directly onto Steve’s face.

“Recess is over, kids,” Coach Carter commented drily as she passed them, not looking up from her clipboard. It was not unusual to see her on the field even as the women’s team had their off-hours. Still, it was an unfortunate coincidence that she should see Steve in such an unsexy position.

“You’re sick,” Steve told Bucky, once back on his feet, wiping his face and neck with the front of his shirt.

“Yeah, me and Jack Bauer,” Bucky replied with a grin. As though _24_ was his personal epicenter for learning, when Steve knew for a fact that Bucky would always rather watch reruns of _Friends_ or _The X-Files_ if the choice was put before him.

“Don’t drown our striker, Barnes,” Gabe said, bumping into Bucky and making him hobble sideways. “He’s gonna win us the College Cup next season, be it by skill or good looks.”

“Sycophant.”

Steve mimicked Gabe, and so did Morita, jostling Bucky so that he almost fell over.

“Hey Gabe, glad to see you back on track,” Steve said later, and clapped Gabe’s back. Maybe he was being too real for four o'clock in the afternoon, but he continued on. “I’ve missed your pep talks out there.”

Gabe breathed out a huff of laughter.

“Yeah, bet you didn’t miss me for the one-on-ones though.”

“No, it’s been a nice reprieve for my ego in that regard,” Steve said.

“No one’s tunneled you in a while, huh?”

“Nah, no one’s ever done that on me actually.”

The laugh Gabe let out sounded real, and Steve was happy to have elicited it. It felt like assurance that things were going to work out, no matter the low state Gabe had been in. No discussion needed.

 

_____________________

 

September was all about getting those gains, baby. The seven of them had a standing date with the gym every day, where the biggest argument concerned what sort of music should be played to get them all pumped. Revealing what you enjoyed, be it music or 18th century Italian literature (though it rarely was 18th century Italian literature...) exposed you to an unrelenting torrent of criticism. Mostly because it was fun to rib each other, but also because liking things was somewhat taboo.

“You would think that liking Jimmy Buffett makes you a dad, but you’re actually the spitting image of a weird uncle,” Bucky said, when Dum Dum had elbowed his way to the sound system to choose the music for the day.

“Steve is the dad, Morita is the mom,” Dernier said.

“I’m the adored baby brother,” Gabe said, strained, in the middle of doing his reps. It didn’t keep him from elaborating. “Bucky is the big brother, who’s the parents’ favorite because he’s the firstborn. Monty and Dernier are the neglected middle children.”

“Why do I have to be the big brother? Why can’t I get a new role.”

“Yeah, I think Bucky’s the mum, whose love we all crave, Steve’s the dad whose approval we all crave, and Morita is the older sister who helps out a lot, but is bitter about it,” Monty offered.

“I want to be the mom. I want to stay home and daydrink,” Dum Dum said.

“That’s stupid. I’m the mom because I get the least recognition for all the shit I do for you losers,” Bucky said.

“In that case _I am_ the mother,” Morita concluded.

“I’m the sexy mom, and Jones is the freaky aunt, my lesser looking sister.”

“No-”

“Guys, guys—you can all be the mom,” Steve said. “I’m the friendly neighbor, no relation. Dugan, turns out you’re actually the family dog.”

Steve’s wisecracking disrupted the respective set everyone was on. Bucky actually fell over, but didn't seem to hurt himself. But Dum Dum didn’t mind the harsh assessment because he liked dogs more than he liked people, and there was no teasing to be done about that.

 

_____________________

 

Something Steve appreciated about Bucky was how he was scientifically minded, without being anal about it. He didn’t feel the need to interject with an _Actually…_ to inform people of how this and that should be analysed and categorised. He didn’t compulsively sort everything into taxonomical piles that had no bearing on anything real and mundane. He just liked to know how things worked. To disassemble things and build them back together.

Going to college meant being audience to a lot of conversations where the object was for two or more opposing individuals to define something as specifically as humanly possible. As though there were a definitive grid every word and phenomenon could be placed into, if you could only make the squares small enough. Steve felt that it often derailed into opinions that were patently removed from reality, or merely useless in everyday life.

In contrast, it was nice to simply look on as Bucky tinkered with the small components of machines needing fine-tuning. Steve sat in one of the two chairs in Bucky and Dum Dum’s dorm one evening, marveling at how clever Bucky was. It made Steve's inside swoop, to really consider the skills Bucky possessed. To both be a Division I soccer player, and a high-achieving engineering student at the same time. To Steve, this amounted to some sort of wunderkind—like Mozart or Da Vinci or Serena Williams. Even though he knew rationally, that that was pushing it a bit.

But he couldn't help the awe that took hold of him whenever Bucky excelled out on the field, or worked on some schematic Steve couldn't even begin to grasp.

"You're so cool..." Steve said, not really thinking it through before the words had already left his mouth. 

"Huh?" Bucky said and looked up at Steve, who stared back blankly. "Shut up, ya goofus," Bucky chuckled, as though Steve had been messing with him.

Steve didn’t try to convince him otherwise. There just wasn’t any way for him to convey this feeling out loud, so what was the use in trying.

Steve wanted Bucky to ask if he was going to sleep there, although he didn’t have a good reason for why he should. It was still pretty early, and none of them had yet adjourned to one of the more horizontal surfaces to pretend they weren’t napping.

The beds weren’t bigger than any other single-sized one, but it was possible to sleep two men to one without overly much sleep-deprivation. Steve found that he slept quite well next to another bulky body in a pinch. It was worth the muscle stiffness for the practical trade-off of not having to walk all the way back to his own dorm room. It might seem a small bargain, but. Whatever. It was just practical. Both Morita, Dernier, Dum Dum and Bucky lived in the same corridor, and Gabe and Monty were only separate to them by a two minute walk. It was unfair that Steve was kept out of the loop by having to walk for fifteen minutes to catch up with them.

Steve had bunked on the bottom shelf with Morita more than once, but preferring not to be elbowed in the face or ribs every other half hour, he was more inclined to share with Bucky. Why Steve was always taking up precious space in one of their rooms was an arrangement left undiscussed, and no one seemed to mind that. 

Bucky was trying to get a small robot to tie the laces on a pair of shoes.

Steve really wanted Bucky to ask if he was going to sleep there. But he never did, which meant that Steve had to reluctantly pack up his things and make his way back to his own dormitory.

Other students were out walking; from dining halls and study areas and friends’ dorms. The leaves on some of the bushes and trees lining the footpaths had already begun to turn yellow and red. The colors seemed to glint in the low light coming off windows and street lamps. Steve thought about Thanksgiving break, and how he wanted to ask Bucky to stay with him in Brooklyn. Maybe it could be only for the first few days. Bucky could take a flight to Indianapolis on Wednesday. Or Thursday morning. There was still time to get some tickets on the cheap.

No words came forward to help formulate the question. It might have been clingy—and presumptuous—to ask Bucky to spend more of his time outside of school with Steve. He had already intruded for a week at Bucky’s parents’ house. But then again, wouldn’t it be a natural progression—returning the favor even, to ask Bucky to stay with him at his mom’s place? It would only be for a few days.

Brooklyn could be so perfect, with Bucky in it.

 

_____________________

 

Steve's first semester as a starter, his second year of college, ended in him cutting the season short. Skipping the final matches, and getting on a bus back to New York.

In the middle of practice, Coach Phillips thrusted a cell phone at him without explanation, and a familiar voice that Steve couldn't quite place, told him that his mother had been in an accident and was currently being treated in hospital.

At the word ‘hospital’, Steve felt his stomach bottom out and had trouble hearing what else was said. A low-pitched ringing had started up in his ears.

It was stupid, because he himself had been sent on countless trips to the hospital over the years. That habitual adventure didn't stop after his dad died. It was as unavoidable as ever. Only that previous semester had he been in the ER getting his head checked for a concussion. It had been numbly unpleasant, in the distant sort of way he didn't actually allow himself to understand.

So, arguably, it shouldn't have paralyzed him with fear to hear that his mom was in the hospital. If his rationality were actually functioning, he wouldn't have jumped to any conclusions. He did retain half a mind to hear the repeated words that Sarah Rogers was in no danger, she was going to be fine. But her leg was fractured and she would likely need assistance until it healed. That should have reassured Steve enough to regain his calm. Astonishingly, he found his hands to be shaking as he ended the call, only half-remembering the words that had been exchanged.

He stood still for a long moment, frantically debating with himself if he should finish practice or not. There was nothing to be done right this moment, only to get a bus ticket for the earliest departure tomorrow. Pack a bag. This got him thinking about how much to pack. He was led down a rabbit hole of what this would mean for the remaining tournament, and his course work. What it would mean for his mom to be out of work for several weeks. To have hospital bills to pay. How much did Steve have in his savings account?

And he knew that he was blowing it out of proportion. He understood that a fractured leg wasn’t life threatening, that his mom had insurance. That they had people who would help out, if worst came to worst. And yet there was this nameless panic, expanding in his chest. Like a noxious gas, floating up into his head. Clinging against the tissue in his throat and the inside of his cranium, seeping in through the folds in his brain.

He put the thoughts on mute and finished practice. As soon as it was over he went straight to his dorm, forgoing shower and change of clothes. Nobody stopped him or called after him, as he stormed out of the locker room. Nobody ran after him to ask what was going on, so he must have kept it together well enough.

But back in his room, Steve couldn’t find his damn cell phone, and he had barely any clean clothes, and he didn’t know which books to bring, and the walls were almost spinning. They shook in the corners of his vision, as though they were about to burst into motion like a centrifuge. He noticed how difficult it was to breath. His head prickled with thoughts of doom. Mostly, to do with himself and his career. And that was fodder to another wave of voices, berating him for being so goddamn narcissistic and selfish.

It was as if none of the thoughts were his own entirely. Like they came from evil copies of himself. He wondered how a person could feel so insane, all of a sudden.

“Steve?” came Bucky’s voice from behind him. “Hey… are you alright?”

Steve hadn’t heard him knock, or announce himself in any way. Bucky had somehow manifested behind him, at the most inopportune of times. Right as Steve was standing in the middle of his dorm room, staring out the window and hyperventilating. He wiped at his eyes several times. It was like the wetness wouldn’t be absorbed.

“I can’t-” _I can’t breath._ “I can’t find my things,” Steve said faintly.

“I’ll help you look,” Bucky said, ever so gently. “Sit down for a minute, okay?”

Steve obliged. He sat down on his bed, his entire body feeling stiff and unnatural. He continued to stare blankly ahead, trying to get a hold of himself. Now he felt like crying in earnest, both from stress and from sheer embarrassment at his own alien behavior. Not the least, because Bucky was there to see him freak out.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Bucky said, after sitting down beside Steve. And maybe because of the way he posed it, like a demand and not a question—all Steve could do was try to explain himself. Not wave it away as him being overdramatic. Nor could he just sit there in obstinate silence.

“It’s my mom,” Steve began, inhaling carefully. Inhale, exhale. In, out. _There you go, no panic._ And the panic flared up teasingly at being thought of. “She was hit by a car, she broke her leg.”

“Oh my god,” Bucky mumbled. “Is she gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s okay,” Steve said. “It wasn’t like a major accident, some car just bumped into her. Coulda been worse.”

“So why are you panicking?”

Steve had to swallow several times and really force himself to search for the answer. What was it that had scared him? The word ‘hospital’? The thought of his mom being dead from a car accident, while he was a hundred miles away?

“I don’t know.” And he honestly didn’t. “It just felt worse than it was. Someone called and said my mom’s in the hospital, and I felt like she was lying, and that she was actually dead. I know it’s stupid.” He shrugged, defeated. “I don’t know why I thought that.”

“It’s not stupid,” Bucky said. Like he meant it. “You lost your dad…”

It didn’t appear to be the obvious explanation to Steve. Maybe because up until this point, he had been too preoccupied with violent emotions—he hadn’t really had the faculties to make the connection. It didn’t strike Steve as self-evident now either, but as Bucky said it, it sounded at least logical. And that was reassuring in itself.

“I guess, maybe” Steve said. He looked down at his hands and stopped wringing them. His vision blurred and he ignored it. He tried to relax his fingers. “Maybe I’m still all fucked up about that.”

They sat in silence for a while. Not moving. Just thinking.

“What hurts the most,” Bucky asked, “about missing him?”

Steve had never been asked this before. It scraped against something painful, even after a decade of moving on and being fine. But he found himself not caring that his chest tightened, as if anticipating crying; or that his head swam a bit, from trying to grasp the words to describe it. He wanted to answer. He wanted to try at least, if Bucky wanted to know.

“I think it’s,” he started, and had to clear his throat. He glanced sideways to find Bucky’s eyes on him. “I think a lot about forgetting his voice. Like, I feel panicked, that I’m forgetting. That I’ll remember it wrong, or not at all, eventually.”

Bucky didn’t say anything, but he kept looking at Steve, and this prompted him to go on.

“We have tapes of him, like recordings of birthdays and stuff, but it’s… The more I listen for him, for his voice, it becomes strange—it feels like the more I listen, the more distorted my actual memories get. Like, I’m...” He had to pause and work through the lump in his throat, getting this last thought out. “Replacing it. With something artificial.”

It had never been formulated before, but Steve felt that even though he hadn’t explained it exactly right, there was something truthful about it that gave him a new understanding of the fear he carried.

Bucky still didn’t respond, he only nodded in acknowledgement when Steve looked his way for a beat.

Steve sighed heavily and closed his eyes. A moment later he felt Bucky’s hand wrap around his wrist. For a second, Steve thought he might actually start sobbing, but instead of freezing up at the thought, he let it go. He wouldn’t brace for whatever came next, he wouldn’t try to veer away from it. 

Bucky’s hand stayed put, like he didn’t mind, either. And in the end, there was no flood. They just sat there and breathed together for a while.

 

_____________________

 

The fall semester had started out innocuous enough. It was Steve's third year of college, his second season as a starter for the Howlies. It was 2007. The housing bubble had just burst—a sexy, young senator from Illinois was running for president. The first iPhone had been launched. Pop punk was really hot. 

All Steve was thinking about was the quarterfinal against Notre Dame.

On the first of December, finals were fast approaching. The Saturday evening preceding the Notre Dame game was spent in the library. They occupied a group study room even though it was only Bucky and him there. Most students had retreated to get dinner or go to bed early. The closing hour was upon them.

Steve had bought Bucky coffee from the cafeteria, to show his support and general goodwill. He had a nagging feeling that something was bothering Bucky. Usually he would just tell Steve apropos of nothing; alternatively, after Steve offered up some thoughts on what was causing friction in his own life, that particular week. Though it tended to be Bucky who initiated those conversations, casually sharing tidbits of his inner world with Steve. Steve was better at answering questions than coming up with them, and he was better at maintaining a conversation, than he was at starting one. Although it couldn’t be said that he was very talented in either area.

Then there was the issue of Steve not wanting to prod too much, just now. There was a risk that whatever was bothering Bucky, had something to do with The Incident. That thing. That thing that had happened to happen to them.

Bucky was snorting occasionally about the images he was clicking through on his laptop. Now and then he turned it a few degrees Steve’s way, so that Steve could look and go, “Heh, yeah.” It seemed to be a website dedicated to pictures of animals with texts on them in ugly fonts.

“Lookit this seal,” Bucky said, for the third time. A new seal every time. Mostly the appeal was the cuteness of the animal more than the caption. 

“Hm,” Steve said, with a small huff.

It couldn’t be outlined in any specific way, why something had to be bothering Bucky. There was nothing for Steve to really put his finger on, which meant, that maybe, he was projecting. But how would you begin to find out that sort of thing without giving yourself away?

Steve tried to focus on the study questions in front of him, but his thoughts drifted to practice and how off his interactions with Bucky had been on the field. They behaved supremely normal everywhere else, but somehow, there had arisen a tiny hitch in their play. They weren’t as synchronised as they usually were. They missed passes and failed joint attacks at goal. It hadn’t racked up to a bad enough track record for anyone else to comment. But it worried Steve. It worried him that they would fall flat, so fucking close to winning the whole tournament.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked Bucky.

“What? Yeah, I’m okay,” Bucky said. He was still looking at his screen. Then he seemed to catch up with the question, just like Steve hadn’t wanted him to do. He tore himself away from the slideshow of funny animals, and said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. What? Yeah,” Steve said. He was tapping his pencil against the knuckles of his left hand. “I’m just stressed about this Art History test. And the game tomorrow.”

“Mm,” Bucky agreed.

“Aren’t you stressed?”

“About?”

“About everything.”

“No, I’m waiting ‘til next week to be stressed,” Bucky told him sagely.

“That’s smart,” Steve said.

He leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling. Then he sighed and tipped over the other way to slump against the tabletop. He couldn’t remember anything specific from any lecture or seminar to do with art history. They had all included about a million academic terms, most of which he had only a vague understanding of. To add to injury, he wasn’t into learning about a bunch of dead dudes just now. He had enjoyed hearing about Artemisia Gentileschi, but she wasn’t even mentioned in any of his learning materials.

“I think I’m gonna fail this final,” Steve told the table.

“No, you’re not,” Bucky stated, like Steve was being silly.

“Yeah, I am.”

Bucky sighed heavily. After a few more seconds of Steve lying on the table being too weak to study, he could hear Bucky close his laptop and push it aside.

“You’ll be much better equipped to deal with all this if you just accept that what will happen, will happen—and you’ll be okay regardless.”

“Yeah, but the thing is I won’t be okay,” Steve countered.

He sounded immature even to his own ears, but it felt true nonetheless. He rose from his slumping position to glare at the books and papers instead.

“You need to relax, Steve.”

If Steve had a penny for every goddamn time someone had said those exact words to him. He would do more than bristle at the advice, if it weren’t Bucky giving it, a fact that ameliorated most situations. He refrained from answering. Fixed his eyes on the pencil in his hand on the table. Unequivocally _not_ relaxed.

“You should blow off some steam,” Bucky said, and Steve stopped glaring at his pencil for a moment to catch Bucky’s eye. “You know,” Bucky continued, with a hand gesture too noncommittal for Steve to understand what he was signing at first.

Steve frowned in confusion for a second, before the expression transitioned into a somewhat embarrassed look of acknowledgement. Almost imperceptibly, but not quite, he coiled up even more. 

“Right,” Steve mumbled.

“Can’t you and Sharon…” Bucky suggested, but Steve shook his head.

“No,” he said, and Bucky didn’t press.

Great, now they were discussing his sex life. The very thing Steve was looking to avoid. And Bucky was probably, at least marginally, correct. It would have helped to get laid. It released tension, didn’t it? Dopamine and endorphins. He tried to think back on his history of post-sex bliss. As long as the sex didn’t come with any new set of (unexpected) expectations bearing on him, it had been fine. It rarely did. for some reason. Maybe it was because Steve was a pretty candid person, in most regards. But sex was one of the many things he didn’t have time for, between soccer and school. The moments were few and far between to begin with. The opportunity required a lot more sacrifices to his schedule than he could abide by, with a good conscience.

That was why he had gone overboard with Bucky, two weeks prior. It was because of their respective availability, among dwindling choices.

“Why don’t you just go back to your dorm and jerk off for a while, huh?” Bucky asked in a guileless way, that Steve couldn’t fathom how he carried off. Done with the euphemisms, already.

“With my roommate there?” Steve shot back and tried not to sound as stiff as he obviously was.

Bucky didn’t miss a beat. “Why not do it right here then—I mean, no one’s gonna notice,” he said.

He leaned back in his chair, balancing on its back legs.

Steve chuckled and scratched the pencil back and forth in one spot on his paper. A memory flashed in his mind, of Bucky pressing Steve toward himself with both hands. The sensation of his entire body, underneath Steve’s. He pushed it away.

“Seriously,” Bucky continued easily, and banged the chair legs back onto the floor. He leaned forward on the table, head turned toward Steve. “I can help you out if you wanna.”

Whatever it was in the delivery of that offer, indicating that Bucky was still referring to masturbation, made Steve look him in the eye again and pronounce a faint, “ _What_.”

Bucky held his gaze, betraying nothing of his state of mind. In fact, looking perfectly calm and serious, which Steve could not believe was the case, as his own mind was lowkey screaming in the absence of a natural response.

Bucky let one arm drop and leaned towards Steve. Their chairs were already standing close together, so it was an incremental distance he had to cross to be all up in Steve’s space; normally, an innocent occurrence, but at this moment, suddenly loaded with intent.

“Should I?” Bucky asked in a low voice, that was still more genial than seductive.

Nevertheless, a wave of intense heat spread through Steve’s body, like Bucky had dialed the thermostat inside Steve to a max, only by alluding to a handjob. Because that _was_ what he was saying, right? It felt bizarre, and Steve marvelled at the overzealous effect this conversation was having on him. He really must be in dire need of sexual release, how else could one explain the immediate attention of his dick?

“Do what?” Steve said in an equally low voice, despite himself.

“Help you out?”

The answering question cleared up absolutely nothing. But even so, Steve made the snap decision to just nod and see what would happen.

“Okay,” Steve said, and passively accepted Bucky’s hand going for the waistband of his sweats.

 _Holy fuck_ , Steve thought, one major part of him going completely off the rails from bewilderment. Another part—the one projected outward—remained calm. Still. Reserving and minimising any reaction until the latest possible second. _Holy fuck_ , Steve thought, when Bucky’s hand caressed him, to then in short order grasp his dick and stroke upward.

“Ah,” Steve exclaimed with a badly suppressed jolt.

Bucky’s other hand, previously clasping the edge of the table, came up to push Steve backwards by the shoulder, into the backrest of the chair. It slipped off and landed on his thigh, near the bend of his knee. Steve’s eyes didn’t know whether to focus on that hand on his leg, or the mess of papers spread out on the table, or the wall directly in front of him. But one place they wouldn’t stray was Bucky’s face—not to mention the place where Bucky’s other hand was occupied.

Only when Bucky said, “Relax,” did Steve close his eyes and abandon his denial of what was going on.

He felt Bucky maneuver himself around to face him perpendicularly, folding one of his legs under himself on the seat of his chair. He leaned his weight momentarily on Steve’s thigh. The other leg he hooked around Steve’s ankle, under the table, anchoring Steve to the spot even more than what he had already accomplished by holding him by his dick.

Steve would have been surprised at how fast his inhibitions came down, had he been able to form coherent sentences even in his mind at that point. It took Bucky merely a few couple of strokes to get Steve hard, moving up into the touch. Bucky’s hand shifted expertly. It felt like a tidal wave of excitement and pleasure had been waiting for ever, somewhere off Steve’s radar, for this moment to arrive and wash over him in spasmodic, arrhythmic surges.

Steve felt Bucky lean in more. Place his head on Steve’s shoulder—his nose grazing Steve’s neck. For some reason that specific gesture was the most startling out of all. Like it made the circumstances intimate beyond whatever preliminary boundary already crossed. 

Steve’s legs cramped and he had to concentrate to loosen up his muscles. His right foot slid forward. He pushed his head against Bucky’s and tried not to moan too loudly. He felt Bucky’s hot exhale on his neck and it occurred to him only then, that Bucky was turned on by this. It was an incredibly asinine thought to have, as far as realisations went. And he realised that too. But it still hadn’t entered Steve’s realm of possibility until then, that Bucky was into guys. 

What happened before wasn’t a weird coincidence or feeble experiment—Bucky might actually be full-on gay.

Steve opened his eyes, struck by the vague but insistent idea that maybe this changed things, and maybe that meant he should put a stop to it. But by this time, Bucky had decided to underline this development further, by pushing back his chair and swivelling Steve around so that he sat sideways on the seat. To then go down on his knees between Steve’s legs.

It was fairly obvious what was about to happen next. More so to Steve’s body than his lagging brain, because he canted his hips up reflexively and let Bucky pull his pants down enough for his erection to come free.

And then Steve was being blown (and incidentally, blown away) in a study room at the goddamn library, by the central midfielder of UConn’s Howlies. By his very good friend and pal.

“Bucky!” Steve heard himself say. A sort of odd, out-of-body experience. With time only to grab Bucky’s hair and jerk forward convulsively, before he came in Bucky’s mouth.

 

_____________________

 

The day before Steve was to go back to Brooklyn, Bucky’s dad took them fishing. George woke them up at six a.m. and they drove for about half an hour to a creek. Steve had never been fishing. He had never so much as toyed with the idea. But when George suggested it, and Bucky described what it would entail, it suddenly sounded pretty appealing. They brushed their teeth and got dressed, the morning of, and George fed them sandwiches in the car. The sandwiches, ham and cheese, were topped off with juice boxes. Like a proper family outing must.

The creek was green, like the trees surrounding it. It felt like it should be perfectly empty. Just sediment traveling downstream, green reflecting green. The trees cast dappled shadows on the narrow fringe between themselves and the water. It was reasonably warm, even though the clock hadn’t struck seven thirty yet.

Bucky took a seat at an outcrop somewhat elevated above the water. George placed himself a few feet farther upstream, where the water’s edge lapped on cement-colored shingles. Steve, who was still tired from a week of lazing around all day and staying up late every night, sat down behind Bucky and leaned his body against his back. He fussed a little to find the best position, then rested his head against Bucky's shoulder blade. In some miraculously ergonomic way, it had him almost dozing off within five minutes. He wasn't allowed to talk anyway, but that didn't bother him. He was comfortable just listening to birds calling out to one another, and the tiny bubbling sounds the creek made.

“Did you know Lewis and Clark came through right here, by this creek?” Bucky said, his vow of silence having lasted about fifteen minutes.

“Shh,” Steve said. Then he mumbled, almost too garbled and low to be heard, “Lewis and Clark were assholes…”

“What?” Bucky said, and laughed.

Steve felt Bucky turn his head quickly in George’s direction.

“Sorry…!” Bucky whispered.

“I think you’re off by a couple of states,” Steve said into Bucky’s back.

“No, I swear,” Bucky insisted. “They canoed here straight to Missouri.”

Steve rubbed his face against Bucky’s t-shirt. Bucky squirmed.

“Lewis and Clark were America’s most iconic BFFs.”

Steve laughed, but caught himself. He bit his lip to stay quiet.

“Sacagawea was the icon of that expedition. She went thousands of miles for those dudes—with a freaking newborn baby on her back.”

“I could do that,” Bucky said, scoffing. “Like, are you serious? Babies aren’t even heavy.”

Bucky knew how to hook the cricket without killing it, which was both nasty and impressive. He demonstrated this, body twisted Steve’s way. He wasn’t completely coldhearted about it, he said sorry as he did it. But that didn’t do much for the cricket.

“That’s sick…” Steve whispered.

“Yeah,” Bucky said as he turned away from him and tossed the bait into the stream.

Steve was fully awake by this time, and scooted forward to sit beside Bucky. None of them had caught anything yet. Steve’s fishing rod was propped against a little rock, self-sustained and untouched by any and all fish. Even so, the reality of fishing pretty much lived up to Steve’s expectation. It was meditative; to sit outside and ogle the water, nature and all its bland glory. Steve never could figure out how so many artists chose to suffer through making landscape paintings—but this, just being in it, doing fuck all. There was a little bit of splendor in that, it couldn’t be denied.

“We should go on a road trip,” Bucky said.

“Where’d ya wanna go?” Steve asked.

“I wanna go to San Francisco. Yellowstone. Grand Canyon,” Bucky listed slowly. “And I wanna go paddling in the Hoover Dam.”

“In the Hoover Dam? Can you do that?”

“In the Colorado River,” Bucky clarified. “The water’s like glass there, you can see all the way to the bottom. And there're caves and shit. It looks dope.”

“Huh,” Steve said. He thought Bucky must have put a lot of consideration into this. Steve had never really fantasised about trips he would like to make, come to think of it. He had a nebulous wish to visit Ireland, because of his mom talking about it. “We should do that,” Steve said.

“Yeah.”

It felt almost like a deal.

On the car ride back, George and Bucky lamented the bad fishing conditions. They agreed that the weather was too hot and that the water was probably polluted. The crickets hadn’t done their part in looking lively enough, and nothing beat a steak anyway. 

“Sorry if we scared the fish away with our talking, George,” Steve said, to alleviate some of the sting.

“That’s okay,” George said. “I haven’t caught a single fucking fish all summer.”

 

_____________________

 

Drama was usually postponed until after finals and/or the last game of the season. Most student-athletes at least, were single-minded enough to focus on what they were supposed to be focusing on. Right up until the first few minutes of downtime, when they could finally let loose and acknowledge whatever cumulative shit having hit the fan.

This was not the case with Steve.

Oh sure, he was one of the most single-minded people around. The most bullheaded person in America, more or less. But upon walking back from the library to his dorm that Saturday evening, on the first of December, Steve’s entire sense of self unraveled. Once inside his door, the hysteria was _real_ , and he numbly got into bed to stare at the ceiling for the better part of the night. His mind supplying him with all the horrible outcomes, in the scope of possibility, that could follow the day’s events

They all ended with Steve being a friendless failure. Ostracised from the people closest to him, and the world of soccer at large.

Why hadn’t the other incident triggered this response? Rubbing off against one another until both climaxed was no doubt a sexual act, too. Just as much as getting your dick sucked was. He had been exactly as stone-cold sober that time around. There was no pressuring involved whatsoever—and he had, indisputably, liked it.

Yet, Steve had been able to sweep it off his mind like it was no more than a poorly played exhibition game. It hadn’t redefined him as a person. Was it the prospective gayness of Bucky that now all of a sudden made Steve complicit in the fact? Not _complicit…_ but gay by association. Whereas earlier, they had simply been two straight dudes acting a little queer.

But that had never been the case, had it.

And putting aside the bullshit, bigoted social norms, even as they pertained to his soccer career—Steve had nothing against homosexuality. On the contrary: Steve would have considered himself an ally, should he ever truly have had to consider himself in relation to the LGBT-community.

But that was where the shoe pinched, wasn’t it. Steve had defended all kinds of people from bigotry. One notable person being Arnie, who reprobates (as his mother would call them) yelled ‘fag’ after, even while they were still in elementary school. Steve had been scrupulously informed at an early age, which words were unacceptable, and for a long time it had been his God-given mission to reproach whoever used hateful language against somebody.

He hadn’t defended Arnie against _the notion_ that he was gay, and he had never felt the need to defend himself against that notion being turned on him. So logically, it shouldn’t bother him to realise that he actually was… that way… about men. Or more accurately, _a man_. Bucky.

The thing that fucked him up was his own obliviousness to the idea. It was frankly shocking, to realise at the tender age of 20, that there was this whole other aspect to your personality. An aspect that, up to this point, had been entirely invisible to him. Like realising you’re a sleeper agent, and your entire life is a lie, because you don’t really love your wife, you love a Russian soldier back in the Motherland.

The lack of self-awareness was staggering, and made Steve wonder what else he didn’t know about himself. His entire self-image needed reconstructing, all because some thoughtless fondling with his best friend.

Or did it? Was he changed? Was he gay and just couldn’t tell, couldn’t identify with the concept? Was he bisexual, with a track record only covering attraction to the opposite sex, until now?

Steve didn’t feel different. He felt the same. And that didn’t make sense. He knew that if anyone found out about what Bucky and he had been up to, it would alter the way they saw him. It would alter the way they interacted with him. It would alter his future, maybe even his chances of making it as a professional athlete.

But it was already altered. The actions were already out there to reflect on him, whether people knew or not. Things had changed, even if he couldn’t trace the difference within himself.

Steve had not considered his mother’s reaction in all the doomsday scenarios that came to mind, and it was his thoughts landing on her that led him off the cliff’s edge. Sarah Rogers was not going to think of her son any differently, whether he was straight or gay. That knowledge grounded Steve and allowed him to fall asleep in the small hours of morning.

Of course the next day was game day, and he needed to be up and ready at six thirty a.m. to get to the others’ residence hall and cram another study session before heading to the locker room. With Bucky. Bucky _who sucked him off in the goddamn library the night before._ Steve considered skipping it altogether, and face him only last minute as the team began prep. But his better character won out over his newly discovered fear of confrontation.

He couldn’t recall experiencing this level of anxiety when it came to his social life in ages. If ever. But there was no reasoning that would allow him to stand someone up when he had made plans with them. Even texting that he was too tired to study was offensive to his sensibilities. If Steve was going to lie to Bucky, he might as well do it to his face, like a man.

But that would defeat the purpose, so he wasn’t going to lie at all. He was going to act normal and not give away the fact that he was presently in the throes of a minor existential crisis, caused by Bucky’s incredible ways with his hands and mouth.

Steve arrived clammy with cold sweat and a shade paler than usual, outside Dum Dum and Bucky’s door. Knowing full well he was doing a phenomenally bad job at being normal, but disregarding it, he knocked brusquely to face the music.

“Shit, man—you okay?” said Morita, as soon as the door swung open.

Steve blinked at him for a second, a glitch in his brain as he processed the words and Morita being the one to have opened the door.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, yeah,” he stammered, unconvincingly, not even mustering a fake smile to go with the words.

“Aren’t you supposed to play full-time this game?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, shouldn’t if you’re sick. You’ll only fuck yourself up more,” Morita continued evenly, always the sensible mother hen.

 

_____________________

 

Steve didn’t play the full game. He was replaced in half time by William, because his form was shit. There was no explosiveness to be mustered for his sprints. The goal attempts went flying wide over the crossbar, or were lobbed straight into the waiting arms of the goalie, like he was handing over a baby to their mother. He still managed to get booked from a rash tackle.

Steve sat on the bench the rest of the match and felt like the worst player of all time. And it didn’t even matter. When the clock ran out the result was Howlies: two, Notre Dame: one. They had made it to the semifinal, no thanks to Steve.

 

_____________________

 

Having abandoned his debilitating self-scrutiny, Steve shadowed Bucky the entire day, determined to get some answers on what the fuck was going on between them. He just needed to ask, right? What was the worst that could happen.

So why did thinking about it make his insides twist into painful knots?

As soon as Dum Dum left the dorm to get food, Steve psyched himself up to say what he needed to say. Bucky sat by the desk in front of his laptop, reading Wikipedia articles. Steve sat behind him on Dum Dum’s bed, toying with the hems of his sleeves. It was like it had been that first time—nothing was different, not on the surface. Bucky hadn’t given him any _looks_ this day, or smiled at him in any particular way. If anything, he acted more reserved. The few times he had touched Steve, it had felt strangely calculated to be a friendly touch, nothing else. It was ridiculous. And Steve didn’t know if he was reading too much into things. Backtracking the entire month in his head—the entire year, their entire friendship—to find clues as to what Bucky’s intentions were with him. 

This was of course easier than figuring out what his own intentions were with Bucky, beyond keeping him for himself. That was a mystery left to be pondered at a later date.

“Bucky,” Steve said.

“What,” Bucky said blandly, turning around to face him.

Steve didn’t know if he would have preferred to continue talking to the back of Bucky’s head, like a coward. But here they were.

“So, about yesterday. In the library...”

“What about it?” Bucky said, when Steve didn’t continue.

“That was…” Steve trailed off again as he tried to read Bucky’s face, getting absolutely nothing.

How did Bucky do that? Just shut down like that? Steve had a preternatural sense of where Bucky’s head was at, any time of day, any day of the year—but as soon as they encroached on the subject that was... _relationships_ , or whatever, Bucky turned into a fucking locked vault.

“What was that?” Steve settled on saying.

“What? You’ve never gotten a BJ before?” Bucky said, deadpan, and followed it with a smirk that was equal parts lewd and condescending.

Steve wasn’t having it.

“You know what I mean,” he said, steely.

Bucky looked away then, back to his laptop, and shrugged.

“Whatever, I was just doing you a favor. It’s not a big deal.”

Steve marveled at the level of nonchalance Bucky was projecting. Were they even talking about the same thing?

“Okay, but like-” Steve continued, unsure of how not to turn this into a fight because of his own mounting frustration. “That’s not something any of my other friends would do, you know? So. What does this mean.”

It wasn’t as if he weren’t grateful for the blowjob in question. This wasn’t par for the course, and Bucky couldn’t pretend that it was. Half the time when Steve had gone down on someone they hadn’t even returned the favor, so yeah, no—this wasn’t a regular thing to be happening to him. And he was fairly sure that Bucky wasn’t going around offering head to his other friends like treating them to a fucking _Snickers_ bar.

Bucky spun around in his chair to face him full on with a disinterested look as if to say, _Well, DUH._

Then his features smoothed into something mild and indulgent. Probably taking pity on Steve who, despite his best attempt at looking casual, was most likely showing his confusion and anxiety plain as day.

“What?” he asked Steve.

“So… you’re not trying to be, like. Be my _boyfriend_ or anything...?” Steve said, squinting at Bucky while trying not to rush over the word ‘boyfriend’ even as his body cringed at saying it. He was trying to balance between not sounding presumptuous, and also demanding an explanation.

“ _No_...” Bucky said, squinting back.

A brief staring contest ensued.

“Look,” Bucky said, finally. He was facing the wall now instead, turned halfway between Steve and the desk, as though the beige color provided him great inspiration. “This could just be- a thing, like. Favors between. Buddies. Just fulfilling each other’s needs. You know?”

Steve did not know.

“Yeah,” he agreed, shaking his head.

 

_____________________

 

Things reverted back to normal after that. Even though there had never exactly been a changed state to revert from, to begin with. But they did act as though no new developments had taken place, and that was fine.

The semifinal wasn’t for another twelve days, and the time spent in waiting simultaneously dragged on, _and_ was chock-full of business. Steve studied for his finals, and spent the rest of the time in his studio in the art department. Sometimes he floated around between the cubicles and open areas, checking out the other students projects with envy. A part of him wished that he had more time to devote to his art, so that he could become as skilled as his peers—at the same time he knew not to compare himself to others. He had had to learn to appreciate whatever his art came to be, even as it was modest in scope and execution. He was already dreaming about his next project, the many things he would get done the coming semester.

Between finals and strategy meetings, as the semifinal drew near—Steve also began to tentatively take in the men around him. Looking for a change in how he viewed them. They all seemed to have remained the same, even with his new perspective. He could appreciate their aesthetic pleasingness, like he did looking at art or feeling inspired to draw, just as before. But he didn’t feel any particular desire to engage with any of them sexually. (Or romantically, for that matter.)

Steve did experience a slight tension with Bucky, although for all intents and purposes it was one-sided. He found himself keeping extra neat for any occasion involving Bucky. Especially for the times they were likely to be alone together. Anticipating, in the back of his mind, that something would happen again. That they would ‘fulfill each other’s needs’ as Bucky had put it.

But nothing happened, and Bucky seemed generally disinclined to even spend time with Steve in a situation that would lend itself to that sort of activity taking place.

 

_____________________

 

On the fourth of December, nothing seemed off to Steve. On the fifth, Bucky didn’t eat lunch with him, because he was meeting up with the engineers for their group project. On the sixth, Bucky didn’t talk to him for all of practice. On the seventh, Steve was not invited along downtown for a Christmas gift expedition. Gabe, Bucky and Dernier were just gone all of a sudden; Steve being the only one left in the dark about their mall plans.

On the eighth, Bucky had not touched Steve for an entire week. Not that Steve was counting or anything. Nevertheless, in the team room after practice, Bucky didn’t sit down next to Steve, even though there was a free seat _right there_ , as though reserved for him. The space between them filled up; Dum Dum, Dernier, and Monty all threw themselves down into the cushions. Even though Steve couldn’t get a clear view of Bucky, even though Bucky wasn’t taking any note of him whatsoever, Steve still felt his presence like there was a forcefield between them. Like their bodies were magnetised. Like he was pulling on Steve, when realistically, he was pushing Steve away.

Steve started fiddling with his cell phone, to avoid having to talk to anyone.

“Who are you texting?” Dum Dum asked, trying to sneak a look at the message.

“Sharon,” Steve said, not giving away his unwillingness to hand them that information freely.

“Have you guys fucked yet or what,” Morita drawled, like he was talking in his sleep. Preemptively cutting to the chase, because the topic obviously bored him so immensely.

“None of your business,” Steve said in the same neutral tone, not looking up from his phone.

“So that’s a ‘no’,” Monty clarified to the rest of the room.

“Honestly... I think Sharon might be a dyke,” Morita said.

“Don’t say that word,” Steve said, shaking his head at Morita, both shocked and disappointed. “That’s not something you can say.”

“Oh, come on. I’m from Fresno. I have like, three lesbian friends,” Morita said.

Dum Dum, Dernier, and Monty were following the exchange like a tennis match. They all knew for a fact that the number of lesbians mentioned was a fabrication. Or at best, that the designation ‘friend’ was a generous exaggeration.

“I don’t give a shit that you have ‘lesbian friends’. We all have lesbian friends”— _definitely_ a generous exaggeration—“that doesn’t make it okay for you to call someone a dyke,” Steve said. For some reason he felt the need to add, “And Sharon’s not a lesbian.” Then he looked over at the back of Bucky’s head, way over on the other side of the couch. Bucky, who was seemingly disengaged from the whole conversation. “Back me up here, Buck.”

“You don’t know that she’s not a lesbian,” Bucky stated. It came off a bit sullen, but it could also have been that Bucky was very focused on his textbook. “She never said she wasn’t a lesbian. And even if she did she could be lying.”

Steve stared at his unmoving figure in utter perplexity.

“She’s not a lesbian,” he repeated, like Bucky was being daft, even though that wasn’t the point he had been trying to make.

“What the hell do you know, Steven,” Bucky muttered.

Why was Bucky mad at him, when Morita was the one being casually homophobic? In the order of offenses, Morita’s should come before Steve’s.

“Yeah, what the hell do you know!” Morita said, lightly, and they other guys chimed in with the same line.

 _Suppose I don’t know anything,_ Steve thought.

 

_____________________

 

For more or less his entire freshman year, Steve found himself obsessed with Bucky Barnes. Since his dad died—at which point, he had already, tentatively, started his sports career—all that preoccupied Steve’s mind was soccer. Even when nurturing his other interests, like drawing or painting or starting a fistfight, Steve was likely to be thinking about something soccer-related. A sketch of a man in motion was a striker on the field, a feint in a fight was copied from last night’s game. 

Soon after meeting Bucky, Steve found himself possessed with the same vigor of thought—Bucky himself being the subject to constantly pop into Steve’s head. He accounted this weird shift in his mental state to the fact that he was now living and breathing soccer like never before. His body was one with the game, assimilated like a piece of metal in some great machinery, and everything else was secondary or add-ons to this sort of life. Steve reasoned that somehow, that must have freed up the obsessive part of his mind; to think daily about Bucky. What Bucky could be doing at that exact moment, and when Steve was likely to see him again, and where that would be, and how long he would talk to Steve, versus the length of time he might devote to other people in the near vicinity.

A few times, Steve even found himself so focused on Bucky’s presence, that he couldn’t follow, cognitively, exactly what Bucky was saying. It was as though he was taking in _too much_ of the information Bucky was putting out, and his addled brain couldn’t keep up with it.

Even these slight glitches and faux pas, Bucky overlooked. Yet more confoundingly, he even seemed to enjoy Steve’s company. Of course, Steve calmed down eventually. They eased into friendship over the fall semester, so fast and so deep that some might call it co-dependent. 

But Steve knew from the get go… there was an imbalance of attachment there. He didn’t doubt that Bucky was his friend, or that Bucky truly liked him. It just seemed to Steve, that he needed Bucky a bit more than Bucky needed him. And that was fine. There was no reason to dwell on it. But it did elicit guilt sometimes, or shame maybe, when Steve feared he was being too demanding, too… clingy.

During summer break, his freshman year in the bag, Bucky was in fucking _Shelbyville_ coaching little leaguers, and Steve was dying from loneliness. It went so far as for a wild moment, Steve actually considered going to Indiana himself; almost confident that Bucky would be glad to see him there.

Much later—months later—when the spring term was starting to incite fantasies of what the coming vacation could entail, Steve recalled to Bucky that very desperate thought. As soon as he said it, he heard how creepy he sounded. How insinuating it was, to bring it up. How high-maintenance Bucky must find him, as a friend.

“You should definitely come see me this summer,” Bucky said: easy, genuine. 

“I should? I mean, you want to?” Steve said, surprise and hesitance evident in his entire demeanor.

“Yeah, man,” Bucky laughed, as though his reaction was silly, and put Steve in a headlock.

And that was how easy it was for Steve to indirectly invite himself to Shelbyville, for a blessed week in the summer of 2007.

 

_____________________

 

The week that followed being rejected twenty times over, Bucky’s avoidance of Steve was aided by it being finals week. As such, it was almost unnoticeable. 

Actually, Steve had already figured by then, that the whole thing was fine. It was probably just that Bucky had a lot on his mind, what with the finals, the tournament, and the SuperDraft coming up soon. There had been talks, and Bucky was one of the players with a serious shot at getting drafted. That put a lot of pressure on a guy.

Plus, he probably didn’t want to give Steve the wrong idea: Bucky had said that he _wasn’t_ trying to be Steve’s boyfriend. Maybe putting some space between them was to drive the point home. Steve didn’t want Bucky to think that _he_ wanted them to be boyfriends either, so it was all in all pretty fortunate that things had shaken out the way they had.

Steve had several reasons for why he didn’t want to be Bucky’s boyfriend:

1\. He wasn’t sure he was gay (or bi, or whatever!) to begin with, and so that kind of relationship wouldn’t be fair on anyone. What if Steve realised halfway through that he was straight?

2\. Relationships were hard. More so than friendships—they didn’t last. You either got married, or you broke up. And even taking marriage out of the equation... it was simply way too much of a risk for Steve to take, where Bucky was involved. He needed to keep Bucky.

3\. So maybe there weren’t several reasons as much as there were two reasons.

Regardless, the past was in the past. Steve was looking to get on with his life, and return their relationsh- that is- their _friendship_ , to normal. That was why he didn’t deviate from the long ago scheduled plan of giving Bucky a Christmas present. On the contrary, Steve talked himself into giving it early, just to show how fucking cool he was with everything. He wasn’t afraid of his friendship with Bucky, just because one or more of them felt a sexual attraction towards the other. That was neither here nor there.

Steve finally managed to have five minutes alone with Bucky, in the team room, after the last strategy meeting before the game was due. It was the middle of the week, the twelfth of December. Not a particularly special day for them, but it just so happened to be the last day of Hanukkah, which was all the external encouragement Steve needed.

Steve had insisted on sitting next to Bucky, demanding with a nod of his head that Monty gave up his seat and found a new one. Needs must, yada yada. Steve had insisted that Bucky made small talk with him, as soon as everyone rose to leave. Steve had insisted that he be allowed to keep Bucky, just for a minute longer, because he had something to give him.

“You got me something…?” Bucky said, as Steve carefully sorted through his backpack to come up with the package wrapped in cheerful, reindeer printed paper.

“Happy Hanukkah,” Steve said once Bucky received it, adding jazz hands for some reason. 

Bucky squeezed the present a bit, then began methodically unwrapping it, one piece of tape at a time.

“You know I don’t celebrate that anymore,” Bucky mumbled, glancing up at Steve. A smile tugged on his mouth.

“Yeah…” Steve shrugged.

He fought down the feeling that this was a transcendently bad idea.

Bucky let the wrapping paper fall to the floor, then the plastic. He lifted the item in front of his face like a partition between himself and Steve. It was a navy blue hoodie: Howlies apparel. It had a little wolf head on the left side of the chest. It was in the same style as the one Steve was wearing, only Steve’s was grey. Bucky studied the front and then turned it over, seeing the customised four on the back. He lowered his hands.

“This is your number…” he said, trailing off, just looking at the hoodie.

Steve spun around for a second and gestured at the number seventeen that was emblazoned on his back. He laughed and then changed his mind, and then laughed again. 

“Yeah, ‘cus… I just thought it’d be funny- since Harper Sheffield did that with-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Bucky said softly. 

“Four is a defense number anyway, so really, we should switch.”

“Hm,” Bucky half-chuckled. He was looking down at the hoodie again. thoughtful. Finally, he met Steve’s eye, and Steve had to stop squirming. “That’s real nice… I love it. Super cheesy, but I appreciate that.”

“You’re cheesy, so I figured,” Steve said, and shrugged.

They looked at each other and Steve’s right foot lifted a fraction of an inch off the floor, as if anticipating Bucky to initiate a hug any minute now. Maybe Bucky would have hugged him, but at that moment Gabe re-entered the room, singing loudly the national anthem, and the moment was over.

 

_____________________

 

The host city of the cup that year was Cary, North Carolina. Steve was going to be a substitute for the semifinal. It wasn’t that surprising, given the two previous subpar games he had played,

Creighton set the tone for the match by playing very clean. Neither one team could be said to be underdogs, but the Howlies was tipped to win, which made Creighton look like sweethearts. After a tight half hour, the Howlies was suddenly trailing, when Creighton managed to score twice within only a few minutes of each other.

It would seem as though the Howlies had come this close to the finish, only to choke. Steve watched as they finally, _finally_ , made a play for the goal; the ball was with Bucky, and Steve knew exactly what he was trying for. Bucky dummied the ball and turned homeward, putting just enough distance between him and the defender to turn back around and send the ball flying in a neat arc toward the enemy goal. It landed right outside the corner of the six-yard box. But no one fucking ran for it. Näslund was faced the wrong way, and Rodriguez wasn’t fast enough.

“Goddamnit,” Steve grumbled to himself, and then to Coach Phillips: “you gotta put me in.”

“Don’t nag me, Rogers,” he responded, looking on sourly, as the Howlies fought to regain possession in the midfield.

“I can turn this around, I swear to God,” Steve persisted (nagged) when half-time was declared.

“You know what makes you a good captain? An excellent player?” Coach Phillips said to Steve. “It’s your consistency, and your perseverance—that rallies the other guys around you.”

Steve waited patiently for the negative tail-end thatwas bound to follow that kind of statement.

“But lately: you’ve been _flakey_. And since it’s _you_ being flakey, it’s not only detrimental to your own performance. You psych out the entire team. That’s the price you pay for being a leader.”

“How am I leader if I’m on the bench,” Steve said.

“Sometimes it’s better to step back for a while,” Coach Phillips concluded. “Find your way back to yourself right here, at the sideline. Instead of out there, at the cost of all of us.”

This was Steve’s cue to shut up and straighten his shit out. Quietly. Privately. He dedicated all of ten seconds to doing so.

“Look, we’re already losing as is, so what’s the big risk?” Steve said, his final argument about to be laid on the table. “Put me in, and if I fuck up, you can rescind any and all privileges I have, as you see fit. Just let me do this.”

Whatever Coach Phillips saw in Steve’s face after he delivered this—quite empty—proposition must have restored at least a sliver of faith in Steve, because he sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. Which meant Steve was getting his way.

The whistle blew. The crowd was stomping in the stands like angry, corralled cattle. In a somewhat coordinated attack at the Creighton goal, the ball got cleared away by a defender and Bucky took it upon himself to deliver the corner kick. It went straight into the fray, bounced on someone’s shoulder, someone else kneed it, but it stayed in the penalty box. 

Sometimes you have got to just put your head in there, so Steve did. He dove forward and caught the ball hard, high on his forehead. He didn’t see it go in the net, he only caught a glimpse at the goalie as he landed, as Steve himself landed, while the cheers erupted from the Howlies. It was half divine intervention, half Steve’s delusion that they would recover, manifested as a perfect opportunity to score.

The drought was broken and that was all they needed.

The second goal came when Gabe found an opening in the middle and gunned for it. Bucky had been running the right-wing channel and midway through his sprint, he received the ball from Gabe. Steve was ahead of him by a fraction, the obvious intermediary between Bucky and the goal. As he reached the corner of the box, Bucky sent the ball laterally into it, just as required. Steve was right in the path of it, but having noticed Morita coming up behind him, he let it pass through him instead. It only took a well-placed leap and a bit of faith. It landed perfectly in front of Morita, who slipped it past the goalie, safely into the net.

It ended in a shoot-out. It ended when Rodriguez landed the ball in the upper left hand corner and Dum Dum bruised his ribs saving the final kick. It ended with all of them dizzy and giddy with exhaustion and pride.

“You crazy idiot fuck!” Gabe yelled lovingly, ruffling Steve’s hair; and then they were swallowed up by the Howlies, all piling together in merry chaos.

 

_____________________

 

When everyone else reluctantly, but with tired steps, gave in to the late hour and went to bed, Steve and Bucky remained in the dimly lit dining area. Just the two of them.

They talked about previous games and previous Christmases and didn’t broach any topics relating to tomorrow, or any day to come. It was like the future had arrived prematurely, and they didn’t want to examine it too closely. Steve almost felt like the final verdict of the tournament didn’t matter, like they had already made it. There was something about being in your 20s, he thought, that made you aware at every high point that this is where things start to slip through your fingers. Something that keeps you from experiencing fulfillment without anticipating its end. He wished to grow out of it. He wanted to enjoy Bucky’s company without imagining in the back of his head, a future where he didn’t have it.

“If I could go back and do it all again,” Steve said, thinking about his years at UConn, “I would.”

Bucky didn’t offer his usual reasonableness, some countering answer about the future holding promises of new, good things. He seemed to contemplate Steve’s words for so long that Steve thought he should think of something else to say, to divert the subject. He watched him furtively, as Bucky bit the zipper on the collar of his sweatshirt, looking at the table rather than at Steve.

“I would too,” Bucky said, barely loud enough for Steve to hear.

Steve smiled at him, and Bucky seemed to smile back, though his mouth was hidden behind that sweatshirt collar.

God, how did you keep this? How did you keep someone? If they could only squeeze in one more year of it—their lives revolving around something as simple as varsity soccer. Around each other. Steve didn’t touch his legs to Bucky’s under the table out of respect for Bucky’s boundaries. He had resolved to be accepting, rather than resentful of the fact that Bucky didn’t want to cozy up to him just now. But _damn_ , how badly didn't he want to hold onto Bucky in this moment, with more than memory alone. Merely pressing his ankle against Bucky’s would have settled something distantly tumultuous inside of him, but he wouldn’t allow himself.

In the elevator they left a foot of air between their shoulders. The bittersweetness of the day, of the six months that were his 20s, washed over Steve as he stood there placidly next to his best friend. At least for that evening, Bucky had stayed behind with him, Bucky had been his. At least two and a half years had been theirs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third and final part is forthcoming, but since it’s not finished, you’re welcome to comment with ideas or requests! You’re welcome to comment with whatever, actually.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was intended for the CapBB2018 but I couldn’t finish on time. I’m posting this as is, against the better judgment of the great people who have beta’d this. Maybe some sweet soul out there will find it enjoyable! ~~I just want it off my mind.~~


End file.
